Worry or Trust?

Today I re-read chapter 8 of Ann Voskamp's book One Thousand Gifts. It is a pretty awesome chapter. This time as I read it, my mind was filtering it through the lens of the 2016 Presidential Election. Part of me has been uselessly yet actively campaigning (via facebook) against Donald Trump (I don't think anyone in my circle of influence likes him at all anyway), and I've been sharing things I read that tell how terrible he would be as President. And then he leads in the polls and wins more delegates and I begin to wonder and worry.

Right now a lot of my worry is about the election.  ~ "Worry is the facade of taking action when prayer really is." -pg. 143. And I have been praying, but I can tell that, in my heart, I have yet to truly turn the fate of America over to the Lord, and I still fear and worry of what the future holds. But if I know that God is good and if I trust Him and know that he is in control, why should I fear? Going to quote lines from this chapter that I underlined today:

"What if I opened the clenched hands wide to receive all that is?" p. 145

"If I believe, then I must let go and trust. ... What is saving belief it if isn't the radical dare to wholly trust?" p. 146

"True saving faith is a faith that gives thanks, a faith that sees God, a faith that deeply trusts. John 6:29 'This is the work/service that God asks of you: that you believe in the One Whom He has sent [that you cleave to, trust, rely on, and have faith in His Messenger]' That is my daily work, the work God asks of me? To trust the Son,... to trust in now. And trust is that: work. The work of trusting love. Stress and anxiety seem easier. Easier to let the mind run wild with the worry than to exercise discipline, to reign her in, slip the blinders on and train her to walk steady in certain assurance, not spooked by the specters looming ahead. Are stress and worry evidences of a soul too lazy, too undisciplined, to keep gaze fixed on God?" - pg 147

"Perhaps the opposite of faith is not doubt, Perhaps the opposite of faith is fear. ... If I don't emotionally belive, practically belive, in the goodness of God, am I a believer? Don't believers have to believe? Don't they have to trust the Savior? Yes, for salvation from sins, but this too: the salvation from fear." - p. 148

"True, certainly ... there may be underlying issues that warrant medication. I have filled prescriptions. This has been right. All anxiety is not spiritual. And yet I know and haltingly confess: Much of the worry in my own life has been a failure to believe. A wariness to thank and trust the love hand of God. ... The fear is suffocating, terrorizing, and I want the remedy, and it is trust. Trust is everything. If fear keeps our lives small, does a life that receives all of God in this moment grow large too?  ... This is His will, thanks the only thing He asks to be done in everything and always and only because He knows what precedes the miracle. " - p. 149

"Every time fear freezes and worry writhes, every time I surrender ot stress, aren't I advertising the unreliability of God? That I really don't believe?" p. 151

"The Israelites covenanted with God to be a people who remember with thanks." - p. 152

"Gratitude truly is the foremost quality of a believing disciple precisely because gratitude is what births trust... the true belief" - p. 153

"Romans 8:32 - 'He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for as all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?' If God didn't withhold from us His very own Son, will he withhold anything we need? If trust must be earned, hasn't God unequivocally earned our trust? How will he not also graciously give us all things He deems best and right? He's already given the incomprehensible." - p. 154

"All gratitude is ultimately gratitude for Christ. We can count on God. 'how will he not also...?' We can give thank in everything because there's a good God leading, working all things into good. It is safe to trust!"