How to Give Your Memory New Cues That Flow From Rest Instead of Anxiety

Dave Miller
Nov 22
5 min read

Updated: Nov 24

by Dave Miller

We learn how to think, feel, and act long before we meet Jesus. Unfortunately, our reflexes formed in the old creation. Most of our patterns and cues take their direction from a culture untrained in the Kingdom from habits lived out where “…you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph 2:1-3).

Our instincts practiced pressure, fear, self defense, and hurried striving. We learned to survive by reading the room, fixing problems, absorbing expectations, bracing for impact, and even more importantly driven by selfish desires. Even after salvation, our flesh pulls us back toward those familiar instincts of anxiety because anxiety feels like home to the old self.

Rest feels foreign.

Joy feels unsafe.

Stillness feels irresponsible.

Paul understands this tension. He knows the human heart. That is why one of the most important words in all of Scripture sits at the hinge of Ephesians. He says, “Therefore, walk in a manner worthy of your calling.” Everything that comes after that word rests on what came before it. Paul refuses to talk about Christian living until we understand Christian belonging. Before he tells us how to walk, he shows us where we now live inside the covenant community of the Trinity.

Ephesians 1 reveals the deepest truth of your identity. Paul begins not with your work but with the Father’s eternal will, the Son’s redemptive work, and the Spirit’s sealing power. Union with Christ places you inside the life of the Triune God. This does not mean you orbit around God or imitate God from a distance. It means you share in the relationship the Father has with the Son through the Spirit. You live inside the love, joy, fellowship, and pleasure the Trinity has always enjoyed.

This is exactly why Paul repeats the phrase “in Christ” throughout Ephesians 1. He wants you to understand the actual content of your union. If you live in Christ, then what belongs to Christ belongs to you. Paul does not speak in vague spiritual clichés. He names reality after reality, all rooted in the covenant love of the Trinity.

Here is everything Paul says becomes yours because you live in Christ:

You receive every spiritual blessing
You were chosen in Christ before creation
You stand holy and blameless before the Father
You were predestined for adoption as sons and daughters
You receive grace lavished on you in the Beloved
You receive redemption through Christ’s blood
You receive forgiveness of sins
You receive the revelation of God’s will
You join the story where God unites everything in Christ
You obtain an inheritance in Christ
You live for the praise of his glory
You hear the gospel of salvation
You are sealed with the Holy Spirit
You receive the Spirit as the guarantee of your inheritance

These blessings do not float around your life like decorations. They define the environment of your identity. They show the richness of belonging inside the Trinity’s covenant life. They reveal what the Father offers you through the Son by the power of the Spirit.

The Gospel of John confirms this reality. Jesus speaks with confidence about the Father’s love. He says the Father loved him before the foundation of the world. He says the Father shows him everything because they share perfect unity. Then he turns to his followers and says, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.” He draws us into the very relationship he has always enjoyed. Later John says, “God is love,” which means love is not something God produces. Love forms his nature. Love defines the fellowship of Father, Son, and Spirit, and through Christ, love becomes the atmosphere where believers now live.

Ephesians 2 explains how we enter this life. “By grace you have been saved through faith.” God raised us with Christ. God seated us with Christ. God formed us as his workmanship. Salvation puts us inside the relationship of the Trinity NOW. Grace becomes the ground where our natural tendencies begins to heal. The ways of the Kingdom and imitating the faith of Christ become the new natural.

From this place of identity, Paul turns to the walk. “Therefore, walk in a manner worthy of your calling.”

Our walk does not create blessing.

Our walk protects blessing.

Paul calls us to put off the old self and put on the new self because the old self learned anxiety long before it learned trust. He tells us to imitate God as beloved children, to walk in love, light, and wisdom. These commands do not produce pressure. They produce protection. They guard the joy and peace given through union with Christ.

This explains why Paul closes with the armor of God. He does not tell us to fight our way toward victory. He tells us to stand in victory already secured. The armor guards the realities of Ephesians 1. The belt holds truth in place. The breastplate protects the righteousness given to us in Christ. The shoes keep us grounded in the gospel of peace. The shield extinguishes lies that attack our identity. The helmet preserves our salvation story. The sword of the Spirit cuts through confusion with God’s Word.

The armor does not help us scramble toward rest. The armor helps us guard the rest God already gave us. Rest becomes experience as we learn to trust the Father’s will, the Son’s work, and the Spirit’s power.

Rest does not mean less work. Rest means faith in the multiplication of our work. Christ multiplies what we offer because he works through weakness. God accomplishes immeasurably more than we ask or imagine through the Spirit at work within us.

As we learn to trust our place in the Trinity’s covenant love, our natural patterns receives new cues. Anxiety loses its authority. Joy rises in the mundane because we stop carrying what only God can multiply. We learn to live from rest instead of toward it. We learn to guard the peace God gave us instead of trying to earn it.