Even If...

Release from the Prison of Rumination

What if?

Those two tiny little words often set off an avalanche of anxiety, cascading through our bodies, burying us under a suffocating sense of uncertainty and doom. Two tiny little words can capture our minds, chain us to fear, and drag us into a future of possibilities and pitfalls that have not happened.

Despite these pitfalls nonexistence, our central nervous system prepares for them as if we were already free falling into the depths.

It might be a random conversation on a Monday afternoon with our spouse about a surprise bill from the toll road we didn’t realize we had taken and suddenly we’re asking “What if we financially collapse and I can’t pay my rent and my kids starve?”

It might be a barely noticed premonition of the possibility that God might say no to that one thing we’ve been begging for and next thing we know our entire future looks like scorched earth; a bleak landscape of unmet desires and lost dreams.

Maybe it is an interaction where we perceive a subtle passive aggressive hint that something might be hindering the harmony of the relationship.

Note, the perception of passive aggression could be nothing more than a mere perception. Maybe the perceived passive aggression was actually our dear friend desperately holding back with all their might a gnarly garlic burp during the once a month Taco Tuesday night together at the local Mexican joint. Their body language and facial expressions aren’t passive aggression, but an agonized attempt to abide by common social conventions and spare you a blast of garlicy grossness.

Burping aside, we spin out–What if I’ve done something wrong? What could I have done? What if this friendship is over? What if I lose all my relationships forever!?

WHAT IF!?

“What if” is an intensifier of minor things and inconsequential moments. The mole hill becomes Mount Everest when “what if” leads the mental narrative.

IT IS OUR BRAIN’S AND SIN’S FAULT

The genius of the human brain is its extreme ability to discern patterns, to reduce uncertainty, and function as a relentless preparation machine. The plight of the human brain is that it will plan for a million different possibilities, 99% of which will never come to pass in the future.

“Our brains are wired to pay attention to the negative. This negativity bias means your mind will jump to the worst-case scenario unless you deliberately focus on other possibilities.”– Rick Hanson

We build models of the world that are biased toward catastrophe.

That’s really helpful if you need to remember that a tiger lives in this part of the forest and ate your uncle last week, so you should be careful. But as modern people, with tigers safely in the zoo, this instinct isn’t as useful when the threat is just a figment of our imagination, leaping out at us from the future, devouring us in the present.

Recently someone asked Chat GPT for a genuinely novel insight that most people would not expect. The AI’s response was, “Humans never genuinely pursue happiness, they only pursue relief from uncertainty. Happiness emerges momentarily as a byproduct whenever uncertainty disappears.”

Dang. AI has already got humanity pegged.

What we consider to be self-evident truths that free us to pursue life and happiness are actually our ongoing efforts to find security. The American dream is really an experiment in freeing ourselves from uncertainty.

“If you feel like you can’t predict the future you will default to fear, worry, and rumination. Your mindscape will eclipse reality’s landscape. Worrying about the thing that you can’t predict usually involves a nightmare fantasy, which is way worse than anything that could happen in reality. However, this imagined nightmare briefly collapses the chaos of the world into certainty and this is how much humans hate not knowing what the future will hold. We would rather imagine a catastrophe then deal with something unpredictable.” - Chris Williamson

Of course, the greater problem is not the figments of our imagination but the experiential and existential fact that there actually are real tigers out there, and they are dangerous, and they can eat our uncles.

Our "what ifs” are justified because the possibilities we entertain are actual possibilities. The issue is, our brain and bodies experience those future events as if they are happening in the present, and they are not.

WHAT WE DO WITH OUR “WHAT IFS”

We have an assortment of strategies to cope with our “what ifs”.

At the top of the list would be distraction.

We play the part of the proverbial ostrich who sees danger on the horizon and buries its head in the sand. ¹ The obvious problem being most of the distractions we turn to are designed to hijack the most primal parts of our brain, exacerbating fear, rage, and anxiety as a means of keeping our attention. Where we seek relief, we find only more future casting of catastrophe, one doomsday scroll, newsfeed, and tweet after another.

If we don’t distract, we get to striving, strategizing, and designing our foolproof, prepared for everything, contingency laden plan for a perfect, pain free life.

How’s that going?

Enough said.

Let us move on.

We are so terrified of the possibility of future pain that we will even create present pain rather than deal with the unknown. About ten years ago a group of researchers found that people would press a button to administer present pain rather than wait in the uncertainty of future pain, even if that future pain was not certain! ²

We will unconsciously self-sabotage, creating self-fulfilling prophecies in the present with a “let’s just get this over with” attitude convincing us we are self-protecting, not self-destructing.

We ruin our present because we’re so busy worrying about the future. We sabotage opportunities, relationships, and joy out of a desire to protect ourselves from imagined future harm.”– Brianna Wiest

We truly are strange creatures.

WHAT ARE WE TO DO?

Our neural chemistry is hard wired for worry. We are justified in planning and preparing, but God never intended imprisonment in rumination and endless contingency planning for nonexistent future cataclysms.

Of course, because I write from a deeply Christian worldview, I have sought answers from the wise sages of the Bible. At face value, the authors of the Bible essentially say, “stop it”, “don’t do that”, and “quit worrying”.

It is a bit frustrating and flustering at times because there is no end of commands and exhortations to simply trust.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;” (Proverbs 3:5, NIV)

Got it.

How though?

I want to trust, but my brain and body refuse to. I do not want to lean on my rumination and strategizing, but my central nervous system is convinced it can control for all outcomes if it just keeps pumping cortisol and epinephrine into my bloodstream.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6–7, NIV)

Sounds wonderful, Paul.

What am I to do if I am praying, petitioning, thanking, and presenting my requests to God with all of my might, but peace and transcendence of understanding are drowned in floods of uncertainty? My imagination anxiously stands guard, preparing for the moment that God may not answer my request as I would like Him to.

We are obviously missing something that the great saints of Christian history had found. Thankfully, there are modern day saints who can direct our steps.

CHANGE THE WORDS LIKE THE SAINTS DO

My wife, Alexis, is a miracle of a human. I mean that.

She is wise and steady. Growing up in an environment where almost everything was uncertain trained her early in the ways of faith.

When it comes to honesty, integrity, surrender, and trust in the Lord, she is a saint. These things have made her an incredibly potent pastor, particularly for my soul, and especially in the context of our shared Christian vocation. We have spent most of our married life in a very specific niche of Christian ministry: church planting.

Possibilities of organizational, relational, and financial failure and calamity are sort of baked into the cake of church planting. Everything in church planting is uncertain.

What if people do not come? What if people do not come back? What if that person complains about that issue and leaves with other people? What if they misunderstand our doctrine, beliefs, vision, mission? What if we offend? What if we don’t offend, are we compromised? What if the fundraising does not come through? What if we do not engage with this culture? What if we cannot get a place to meet? What if the school kicks us out?

Church planting is one gigantic endeavor in “what if.”

Some years ago, during a season of absolutely devastating what ifs, e.g., Covid, budget uncertainty, low attendance, and accumulating exhaustion, I was on my usual roller coaster of preparing for the worst and it was flooding my existence, and our marriage, with cortisol, stress, and pain.

As we sat on the front step one evening future casting a thousand “what ifs” and planning possible escape routes, Alexis just changed the words.

She said, “You know what, even if _____ happens, I am going to trust God and He will guide us.”

Even if.

No more what ifs and then endless, futile contingencies and empty strategies. Instead, complete surrender to the possibility of it going as exceedingly bad as our frantic imaginations can conjure up.

It was a sort of holy epiphany for me.

Even if the absolute worst case scenario unfolds…well, it will unfold, and then we’ll pick up the pieces and see what’s next.

Two little words with one tiny change from “what” to “even” radically transforms how future events are experienced in the present.

“Even if” alters our neural chemistry—the body breathes in a deep sigh of release, the vagus nerve calms the autonomic nervous system, the amygdala scans for danger while the cerebral frontal cortex acts like the adult in the room, choosing to surrender and trust.

“Even if” envisions the absolute worst case scenario…and survives.

The future dissipates into nonexistence and there, one sits, present to actual problems and yielded to whatever may be.

Even if.

I am convinced this is the secret sauce all the saints mixed into their recipes for peace that surpasses understanding. They yielded their “what ifs” to God and said, “even if.”

Some of them were delivered from terrible situations. Some of them were martyred, the worst case scenario, and they kissed the stakes upon which they would enter eternal life. They all believed that there really was not a worst case scenario because death had been conquered.

“…the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:54–55, NIV)

“Even if” simply embraces the resurrection as true.

THE CLOUD OF WITNESSES

The Biblical record reverberates with souls who served God saying “even if” in the most heinous situations of uncertainty.

Abraham left Ur of the Chaldeans to explore an uncertain future in foreign lands, even if it would cost him all the comforts of his current life. His faith ebbed and flowed, just like yours and mine. In certain seasons the “what ifs” got the better of him and he connived and made really dumb decisions in a panic. In other seasons, “even if” reframed his entire world, to the degree that if God asked him to sacrifice his promised son, then he would do it.

“Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” (Genesis 22:2, NIV)

“Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.” (Genesis 22:8, NIV)

“Even if” believes that if the absolute worst thing possible unfolds, God is good, God knows what He’s doing, God will do what is best, even if it looks horrendous.

The Psalter is full of “even if” prayers.

“…we will not fear, [even if] the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.” (Psalm 46:2–3, NIV)

Even if catastrophic collapse of all we know comes, we will not fear.

Three young Hebrew men stood in the midst of flames and the very presence of God because they said, “even if…”

“Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”” (Daniel 3:16–18, NIV)

“Even if” rejects the worldly and demonic gods of comfort, control, and power to receive true comfort. “Even if” comes under the control of the only true and living God, and is met in deliverance or death. “Even if” declares both, deliverance or death, to be of equal value in the economy of God.

For such a time as this, Esther, the great heroine of the Hebrew people, found her calling and saved her entire people by saying, “even if.”

“… who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.” (Esther 4:12–16, NIV)

Esther’s present obedience was determined by and “even if” framing of a terrifying future.

PEACE IN THE PRESENT, EVEN IF…

We all have a million “what ifs” avalanching through our minds right now. Maybe you have been taken captive by these thoughts. Jesus came to set the captives free, but he will require no less than total surrender.

“Even if” is the white flag.

Whatever our future holds, we obviously are well enough, fed enough, provided for enough, and protected enough to have the leisure to sit on our couch and read through a ten minute essay like this.

Do not take this for granted. The present is right now, and you’re OK. Give thanks for that. Revel in that. REJOICE in that because it is a gift.

As the “what ifs” seek to drag you into an uncontrollable, unforeseeable, future that does not exist yet, join the cloud of witnesses who have gone before you and surrender saying, “even if…”

Herein lies the secret of the saints. Saints who were delivered from the flames and the mouths of lions said, “Even if.” Saints who were imprisoned and martyred entered glory shouting, “Even if!”

Oh saint of God, storm tossed and tormented by that which you cannot see nor control, right now, obey, be present, surrender, and say, “Even if…”

1. Ostriches do not bury their heads in the sand. Instead, they may lay their heads and necks flat on the ground as a form of camouflage.

2. Berns, G. S., Chappelow, J., Cekic, M., Zink, C. F., Pagnoni, G., & Martin-Skurski, M. (2006). The Neurobiology of the Kernels of Dread. Science, 312(5776), 754-758.