Pronoia

As we emerge from the trials of a global pandemic and enter into the tenuous landscape of a changed new world, it can be all-too-easy to allow anxiety to color our days. Do we wear a mask? No mask? Shake hands? Bump elbows? Step into a crowd? Stick with Zoom? A guidebook or checklist would ease the re-entry, but alas, we are making history with each new day of 2021, and the Bible reminds us again and again that we are not to be anxious -- even when the cost is steep and our reserves are low.

Listen to these wise words about God's peace-filled will for our days:

Psalm 55:22 -- Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.

Psalm 56:3-4 -- When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise -- in God I trust and am not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?

Psalm 121:1-2 -- I lift up my eyes to the mountains -- where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

Proverbs 3:5-6 -- Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 12:25 -- Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up.

Matthew 6:34 -- Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Luke 12:25 -- Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?

Romans 8:31 -- What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

Philippians 4:6-7 -- 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.

1 Peter 5:7 -- Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Often when we are overwhelmed by the pressures of the world, we slide into a kind of paranoia -- assuming the worst of the people and situations around us. We begin to mistrust the motivations of the people and forces that surely do not have our best interests at heart, and it becomes increasingly more difficult to see the Lord's handiwork in our lives. But what if we acquire a new lens instead? What if, instead of paranoia, we assume pronoia?

Pronoia is when we suspect that the world around us is conspiring on our behalf, secretly benefiting us. Rather than assuming everyone is out to get us (paranoia), we assume that everyone exists to appreciate and even love us. Sociologist Fred Goldner defined pronoia as "the delusion that others think well of one."

But what if pronoia wasn't a delusion at all? What if we lived post-COVID lives marked by pronoia assumptions of kindness and well-being, leading days of servant leadership and selfless humility, as Christ demonstrated? How would we encounter people in our workplace or in our neighborhoods differently? How would we think about our futures and savor our pasts with new sensibilities, amazed by the distances God has brought us already and astounded by the distances yet to come?

My prayer for you as you enter these transitional summer months is that your days are marked by an irrational sense of pronoia, pressing you to rely on God's heart and wisdom rather than anxiously worrying about what has transpired or what may be ahead. Allow the Lord to orchestrate your days, embracing his supernatural joy and shunning the secular anxiety that beckons with each new hour.

Christ's joy to you this week,

Jennie