Karl Ihfe continues the "Expectation Gap" series by examining the second gap: believing God is with us while struggling to see His presence. Using the story from Matthew 12 where Jesus heals a man's withered hand on the Sabbath, Ihfe illustrates how different "gospels" shape our perspective. He shares Stephen Covey's subway story about a widowed father and his disruptive children, demonstrating how our paradigms can shift when we understand someone's full story—reminding us that "everybody has a story" and "we never know someone's whole story."
Ihfe identifies the "gospel of anxiety" as the primary deceiver in this gap, explaining that chronic anxiety acts like an unreliable narrator, convincing us we need things for our well-being that we actually don't. He outlines five common false needs: control, perfection, certainty, over-functioning, and approval. These false needs, while not inherently evil, become corrupted when we try to function in God's role instead of our own. The problem isn't God's absence but our anxiety preventing us from noticing His presence. Ihfe offers two practical steps: filling in the blank "Jesus died so I don't have to ___" and remembering "God is already in the room."
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