My Spiritual Gift Might be Overthinking

I've taken spiritual gift assessments before. You know the ones.

They ask 1,000 questions to determine whether your gift is teaching, leadership, mercy, giving, administration, encouragement, or something else. But I think they forgot one. Overthinking.

If overthinking is a spiritual gift, I may be operating at an apostolic level.

I can take a perfectly normal situation and, within fifteen minutes, develop seventeen possible outcomes, four backup plans, two emergency exit strategies, and one completely ridiculous scenario involving circumstances that have approximately a 0.0003% chance of actually happening.

Then I'll pray: “Lord, I'm giving this completely to You.” Amen. Very spiritual.

Then approximately seven minutes later: “Okay, Lord, I know I gave this to You, but I've been thinking…”

Apparently, I don't give God my problems. I loan them to Him. I hand them over with the understanding that I'll probably need them back shortly.

Lord, I Trust You…Here's My Spreadsheet

Overthinking has an amazing ability to disguise itself as wisdom.

I'm not worrying. I'm preparing.

I'm not obsessing. I'm considering the possibilities.

I'm not questioning God's ability to handle the situation. I'm simply developing fourteen contingency plans in case the Creator of the universe hasn't considered every angle.

“Lord, I trust You completely. But just in case Plan A doesn't work, I've prepared Plans B through N.” And I can almost imagine God saying:

“Thank you. I was hoping you'd help Me with this one.”

Why do we do this? Why can we trust God with eternity but struggle to trust Him with Tuesday?

Something uncertain happens in our lives and suddenly we're thinking:

“I don't know, Lord. This one seems complicated.”

My greatest overthinking talent is someone says something to me, nothing particularly dramatic, but “Can we talk tomorrow?”

That's it. Four words. A normal person reads that and thinks: Okay. We'll talk tomorrow. An overthinker reads it and thinks: “WHAT HAPPENED?”

Within thirty seconds, I've reviewed every conversation we've had since 2017. Did I say something? Did I forget something? Are they upset? Did somebody tell them something? Did I accidentally offend their grandmother at the church picnic?

By bedtime, I've conducted the entire imaginary conversation.

I've presented my opening statement. I've heard their argument. I've defended myself. I've apologized. I've reconsidered the apology. I've developed a rebuttal. I've forgiven them. I've asked them to forgive me.

We've reconciled. We've hugged. There may have been tears.

And The conversation hasn't even happened yet!

The next day they call and say: “Hey, do you remember where we bought those folding tables?”

I’m glad I worked that one out in my head and lost sleep over it last night. And being a Pastor Doesn't Help. Pastoring gives an overthinker an almost unlimited supply of material. Somebody doesn't show up Sunday.

Are they sick? Are they upset? Did I say something? Did they not like the sermon? Was it the joke? It was probably the joke.

I knew I shouldn't have told the joke.

Meanwhile, they're sitting three states away visiting family, completely unaware that I've mentally constructed an entire scenario in which they've left the church because of something I said at 10:47 Sunday morning.

Here's where this gets uncomfortable. I'm pretty good at telling other people to trust God. It's literally part of my job. Someone sits across from me worried about tomorrow, and I can quote Scripture.

“Trust in the Lord.” “God will provide.” “Don't worry about tomorrow.”

“Cast your cares upon Him.” And I believe every word of it.

Then they leave my office. I sit back down. And start worrying about my tomorrow.

Apparently the Scriptures I confidently prescribe to everyone else occasionally need to make their way back across the desk.

That's one of the humbling things about ministry.

Sometimes the sermon I'm preparing for everyone else starts preaching to me first. Sometimes the person who needs pastoral counseling is the pastor. Sometimes I need to remind myself: Doug, God was faithful yesterday. He was faithful through things you never thought you'd survive.

He made ways you couldn't see. He provided when you didn't know how.

He carried you through things you couldn't fix. So why are you acting like tomorrow is the first day God has ever had to be God?

I don't like it when I preach to myself.

Psalm 46:10 says:

“Be still, and know that I am God.” Be still is apparently a full sentence!

That's difficult for an overthinker. Because being still feels irresponsible.

Surely I should be doing something. Analyzing something. Fixing something. Calling somebody. Making a list. Checking the list. Making another list explaining the first list.

But sometimes faith looks like doing absolutely nothing except trusting God and that's hard.

Because overthinking gives us the illusion of control. But eventually I have to admit I was never in control anyway. And strangely enough, that's not frightening. It's freeing. Because the One who actually is in control loves me.

I'd love to end this by telling you I've conquered overthinking, but I cannot.

I'll probably reread this blog six times after I publish it. Then I'll wonder if I should have worded something differently. Then I'll wonder if somebody misunderstood something. Then I'll consider changing the title. Then I'll decide the original title was better. Then I'll wonder if the blog was too long. Then I'll probably check how many people read it.

Then I'll remind myself that I literally just wrote a blog about this.

But I am learning. I'm learning that not every question needs an immediate answer. Not every silence means something is wrong. Not every closed door is rejection. Not every delay is denial. Not every problem requires fourteen contingency plans. And not everything God is doing requires my understanding. Sometimes I just need to pray: “God, I don't know what's going to happen. But I know You.”