God’s Gracious Response to Our Anxiety and Isolation — Carol McLeod Ministries
When I think about running away and hiding from God, along with anxiety, I think of that famous scene in the movie The Lion King. It unfolds much like Genesis’s account of the Fall. You likely know the story.
King Mufasa is a wise and generous ruler and father. He rules over the pride lands and shepherds his family with the values of kindness, benevolence, and harmony. King Mufasa tells his child, Simba, that he is preparing Simba to rule the pride lands, and he spends much time developing and shaping Simba so that the little cub learns to lead the appointed territory under his care according to the pattern of his Father’s own good rulership.
But a villain steps into the story and changes everything about this harmonious picture. Scar—the evil lion in the movie who is motivated by bitter jealousy toward King Mufasa—deceives the King’s child, Simba. Though Simba has been told various truths by his father, he ends up forgetting the truths he knows and falling for the trickery of his Uncle Scar. The fallout is terrible; his father, the great representative of all the pride lands, falls from the heights down into an irreversible demise. Just like that, Simba’s father is forever ripped from him, along with his relationship with his family. And it’s not long before the pride lands themselves fall under the sway of Scar, the evil one. The little cub is visibly anxious—eyes wide, darting, fearful, trembling, not knowing what to do.
The scheming voice of the evil Scar not only led Simba into this mess, but he’s waiting on the other side of it, telling Simba how to respond to it: “No one ever means for these things to happen. But the King is dead. And if it weren’t for you, he’d still be alive. Oh, what will your mother think?” he taunts Simba.
Exposure. Guilt. Accusation. What-ifs. And all the anxiety that comes with these things flood the little cub until tears overflow in his eyes. It is here that the most important moment happens: we learn what Simba does with his anxiety. “What am I gonna do?” asks Simba, terrified. “Run away, Simba,” Scar hisses. “Run. Run away, and never return.” Simba runs. For the second time, he trusts the voice of evil, darts toward the wilderness, and hides.
We can naturally see the parallels here to the Genesis story. But the worst part is that Simba does all of this in isolation. The next we see of him, he’s languishing in the fetal position under the hot sun, with no one around to help him. Even when the jolly Timon and Pumba find him and probe at his story, he keeps all his groaning stuffed inside. Ashamed, he never willingly tells anyone who could help him. He stays in hiding, and no one knows but him.
The temptation when dealing with anxiety is not just to run away and hide, but to keep it to ourselves. Deep down, we often do want to go to God. We know that going to God helps us because He is our only resource to overcome this world. We know there is great comfort when we choose to be open about our afflictions, and we know being able to go to God when anxious is a beautiful privilege. But like Simba, against all the good truths we’ve been taught, we succumb to believing the opposite. We tell ourselves that our anxieties are just too strong for God to stomach. We think the intensity of our anxiety and suffering have caused us to make a mess of so much, including our relationship with our Father. We think we’ve worn Him out already, or that he’d be disappointed in us if we dared approach him with just how out of control we are mentally and physically. Or we don’t believe that God can handle our anxiety So, in our wide-eyed and trembling anxiety, we listen to the hiss of the enemy and we run—from the One who could help us in the midst of it. As anxiety spears are projected, we dart away from our very Shield, meant to cover us.
But God does not want this. God pursues Adam and Eve, not only after the world’s most colossal mistake (the sin of rebellion)—but also after the world’s worst anxious reaction to that mistake (fear, hiding, covering up). God does not wait for them to figure out that their anxious response was misguided. He knows they have concealed their deepest issues and anxieties with improper coverings, and he moves toward them both to cover them both up with something better. (Gen 3:21) He handles the problem with both parties present, allowing their healing to be experienced with Him instead of in isolation.
God knows their anxious responses to sin and suffering are going to fail them, and instead of abandoning them, he draws near to help them. He beckons them out of the shadows. He does the same with believers today. When we groan, He groans. When we hide, He seeks. He does more than that; he makes it so that there’s no longer a reason to hide even if we do feel afraid. God is a reconciling Father and he seeks to bring us back under his protection.
