Daily Cross, Daily Bread
Your patient will, of course, have picked up the notion that he must submit with patience to the Enemy’s [God’s] will. What the Enemy means by this is primarily that he should accept with patience the tribulation which has actually been dealt out to him–the present anxiety and suspense. It is about this that he is to say, ‘ Thy will be done,’ and for the daily task of bearing this that the daily bread will be provided. It is your [Wormwood] business to see that the patient never thinks of the present fear as his appointed cross, but only of the things he is afraid of.
– The Screwtape Letters | C.S. Lewis
If we only ever focus on the things of which we are afraid, and continue to spiral in our fear of those things, we will get nowhere. And we will get there rather quickly. Anxiety is the gasoline that is liberally dumped onto the fire of our fear. And the one doing the dumping is the devil. This does not mean that our fears and anxieties are only a spiritual issue. We are body and soul; what affects the one affects the other. So there are physiological and neurological factors that play into and on our anxieties and fears. (I say this as one who has known firsthand what anxiety feels like, even when it opens the floodgates to panic attacks.) Yet, we are not to so over-psychologize our humanity that we set aside our souls.
When we spend our energy on fleeing in all manner of directions away from that which we fear, we are harried by the devil. This is the end towards which Screwtape encourages Wormwood: your business to see that the patient never thinks of the present fear as his appointed cross, but only of the things he is afraid of. As Lewis so deftly writes in this book, we as Christians are to take up the opposite counsel of Screwtape. We are to accept with patience the tribulation which has actually been dealt out to him [us]–the present anxiety and suspense. It is about this that he is [we are] to say, ‘ Thy will be done.’ And that, of course, can feel like we are just giving up or giving in. Rather, in saying Thy will be done we are giving up our fear and anxiety to the Lord. Is this not the very thing Jesus did in the Garden in Gethsemane: Yet not my will, but your will be done. Jesus does not say in this phrase that his pain and suffering and fear and anxiety do not matter. Rather, they matter so much that he gives them up to the only One who can do a thing about it. Moreover, he gives them up to the One who desires to do anything about it. And so Jesus takes up his cross. His instruction to those who follow him–his Body, the Church–is to do the same: if any would follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.
Jesus knows the weight of the Cross; he knows the weight of your cross. As God is love, he does not leave you to bear your cross alone. He provides you sustenance for the daily cross: daily Bread. Note the daily aspect of this. We can easily get too ahead of ourselves which heightens fears and anxieties. The Lord calls our attention to 24hr increments; one revolution of the earth on its axis. There are enough worries in that span of time. And there is enough Bread to go around to sustain you in that span of time. The Bread of which we speak is Jesus. He gives himself to his people through the Holy Scriptures, through the Holy Spirit in prayer, and through the Holy Eucharist.
As you encounter fears and anxieties, consider that they might be the cross you are to bear for that day. And, and, let that drive you to ask for our daily Bread: Lord evermore give us this Bread. (Jn 6:34)