This is part of my year-long series exploring human-centered alternatives to the spiritual promises in Oswald Chambers’ classic devotional My Utmost for His Highest. Today’s entry, “One of God’s Great Don’ts”, promises that believers can achieve a disposition that makes worrying impossible through “perfect confidence in the Father,” claiming that fretting is “wicked” for Christians and that taking God “into calculations as the biggest factor” eliminates anxiety even during crises.
Here’s what trying to eliminate worry through spiritual confidence actually delivered:
“Worry is wicked for believers,” her prayer group leader insisted firmly. “You need to rest in the Lord with perfect confidence. Deliberately tell God you won’t worry. Take him into your calculations as the biggest factor, and your disposition won’t allow anxiety.”
Maria’s seventeen-year-old son Diego had just been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. The learning curve was terrifying—carb counting, insulin ratios, blood sugar monitoring, recognizing symptoms of dangerous highs and lows. But instead of embracing this necessary concern, Maria was told her maternal anxiety was spiritual failure.
She tried desperately to achieve the promised worry-free state. When anxious about Diego’s blood sugar management, she confessed it as sin and commanded herself to rest in the Lord. When she worried about his future complications, she prayed to stop fretting and trust God’s sovereignty.
Surely perfect confidence in the Father would eliminate her maternal anxiety.
But the promised spiritual serenity was completely unreachable when her child’s life was literally at stake.
Maria’s worry intensified despite constant prayer and self-rebuke. When Diego had severe hypoglycemic episodes, her fear was overwhelming regardless of spiritual efforts. The disposition that supposedly wouldn’t allow worry felt like cruel religious fantasy when facing real medical emergencies.
Meanwhile, her friend Carmen approached her daughter’s chronic illness with zero expectation of divine worry-elimination. When Carmen’s daughter was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis, Carmen didn’t try to achieve worry-free disposition through spiritual confidence.
Instead, Carmen educated herself thoroughly about the condition, connected with other parents through support groups, worked closely with medical specialists. Her approach wasn’t about eliminating anxiety but channeling concern into productive action. She worried appropriately while taking concrete steps to ensure the best possible care.
When Diego experienced a dangerous diabetic emergency at school, Maria’s “perfect confidence in the Father” disintegrated completely. Her spiritual efforts to avoid fretting had prevented her from learning crucial diabetes management skills that could have prevented the crisis.
Carmen’s supposedly “wicked” worry had prepared her to handle her daughter’s medical needs competently.
Where was the perfect confidence that was supposed to make worrying impossible? Where was God as the biggest factor eliminating anxiety during medical crises?
Maria’s breakthrough came when she stopped trying to eliminate worry through spiritual discipline and started using maternal concern constructively. She took diabetes education classes, learned to interpret blood glucose data, connected with other diabetes families for practical support.
The peace that actually helped came not from resting in the Lord but from becoming competent in diabetes management. Her worry transformed from spiritual failure into parental wisdom when directed toward practical preparation and medical education.
The silence where God’s perfect confidence was supposed to replace anxiety revealed the truth: there was no divine factor that could eliminate appropriate parental concern about a child’s serious medical condition. Only human competence and community support that actually protected her son’s health.
Reflection Question: When has channeling worry into productive action been more helpful than trying to eliminate anxiety through spiritual confidence?
This story is part of my upcoming book “The Undevoted: Daily Departures from Divine Dependence,” which offers 365 human-centered alternatives to the spiritual certainties in Chambers’ devotional. Each day explores how reason, community, and human resilience can address life’s challenges without requiring divine intervention.
God or Delusion? 