There are times when our mental health derails us, and we want to and will pursue every avenue to reclaim a healthy mindset. Sometimes, that requires medical attention, treatment, and counseling. Other times, we’ve simply let our thoughts run wild and unchecked, failing to carry every thought captive to the reality of God’s Word. When we let the guard down our on souls and minds, they turn into ample territory for anxiety and worry to grow. Scripture says,
“Cast all of your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” – 1 Peter 5:7
Let’s face it – sometimes this life can suck. It will be incredibly chaotic – stuffed with worries, concerns, and fears. If we’ve a family – a spouse and youngsters – then those worries and fears are compounded as we feel the necessity to maintain them and protect them. That’s where helicopter parents come from. Throw in our jobs, and the demands on our time and treasures appear to get overwhelmed. Then, as if we don’t have enough on our plates already – we get the unrest we see within the news day-after-day. We see turmoil and hate-filled protests; we see mass shootings and criminals doing things that we cannot imagine. We should be cautious and teach our kids extreme caution. We don’t – can’t – trust our leaders to do the correct thing, irrespective of who those leaders are or what political party they represent. Or illness hits – a nasty diagnosis results in an uncertain future, for us or for a loved one.
Of course, often, our worries are our own doing. We feel the pressure to purchase more and higher stuff to offer for our families. Maybe we simply desire more—a much bigger, higher house, a greater automobile, a greater phone. Oh, let’s go on vacation somewhere—in any case, we want the day off; we deserve it. But then… the economy turns, job loss, inflation hits – hard.
Even if we don’t all the time acknowledge it, our level of tension for our future, our kids’s future – and the long run of our kids’s children – often takes its toll. And sometimes gets extreme. But if we’re honest, the actual source of our anxiety is sort of easy – it’s an absence of control. Perceived control diminishes our anxiety, while lack of control regularly invades our calm. Our perceived control and our anxiety have an inverse relationship – as one increases, the opposite subsides. But everyone knows – the one thing certain on this world is that nothing is for certain. None of us knows what tomorrow holds – irrespective of how hard we try. Corrie Ten Boom has been quoted as saying,
“Worry doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.”
What Does the Bible Say About Worry and Anxiety?
It is perhaps easy to kind of take without any consideration that Christians have the fear and anxiety thing all under control. After all, the Bible teaches us not to fret. Right? But we all know that despite what the Bible says about it, Christians aren’t exempt from anxiety. Jesus himself, within the Sermon on the Mount, spoke of the human tendency to fret:
“Therefore, I inform you, don’t worry about your life, what you’ll eat or drink, or about your body, what you’ll wear. Is not life greater than food, and the body greater than clothes? 26 Look on the birds of the air; they don’t sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not way more beneficial than they?” – Matthew 6:25-26
In Philippians 4:6, the Apostle Paul wrote: “Do not be anxious about anything…” Don’t be anxious about anything? Yeah right. Don’t be anxious in regards to the cancer diagnosis we just received? Don’t be anxious that I just lost my job? As great as that teaching sounds, just simply reading the verse – hearing the words – doesn’t appear to do the trick, does it? Jesus said, “Don’t worry, because we’re way more beneficial than the birds of the air. They get fed, don’t they?” Sure, that sounds great – but how on this planet do I am going from here to there?
How Can We Learn to Trust God within the Face of Anxiety?
We once had a detailed friend in our home church who, once we discussed the difficulty of worry was quite honest with us all. Clenching his fist he said, “I just can’t help it. I even have to fret. If I’m not frightened, I worry that I’m missing something I needs to be frightened about.” Then he asked this moderately simple-sounding query: “How do I stop worrying and start trusting?” How will we stop worrying and start trusting? How will we begin trusting God? Well, the reply is straightforward. It’s demanding, as they are saying – nevertheless it’s easy. Surrender.
Faith results in relationship; relationship results in trust; trust results in give up. The thing is – when you trust, give up is simple. If our own lack of control is causing anxiety – wouldn’t or not it’s smart, then, to trust within the one who does control all of it? Doesn’t it only make sense that we’d trust within the one in whom we place our faith? In whom we place our hope for eternity? Of course, it does. Built around his teaching that we’re to not be anxious, Paul included these words:
“Rejoice within the Lord all the time. I’ll say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 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 4:4-7
And, by the best way, Paul wrote these words while under Roman imprisonment. Rejoice within the Lord all the time. In all things – in all circumstances – we’re to rejoice within the Lord. Not for all circumstances, but in all circumstances. This isn’t based on a sense – but moderately on a call that we make, deep inside, that God is sweet, and he’s on top of things. We rejoice that he can do what we cannot.
I even have long held that trusting God – truly trusting God – is one of the vital difficult things for Christians to learn. We know we’re imagined to. We read the words – they usually are plentiful – and we are saying the words, but darn it, living them out is difficult. It just isn’t a simple thing to go right from faith to give up, without something in between. When anxiety rears its ugly head – we are able to’t simply turn to trust if we haven’t previously laid the groundwork for us to consider the words we read. We can’t go from zero to 100 on demand. But once we try to alter what we consider about life, the very first thing we must change is our belief system. Our belief, our faith, all the time precedes how we act – our behavior.
Putting Our Trust in God into Practice
When we see an expert athlete perform, it’s really easy to only assume, “Oh, that’s how good they’re.” We fail to think about how they got that good. We fail to comprehend the hours, and hours and hours of practice. Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant – all will inform you how much work it took. Tom Brady didn’t just suddenly turn into great. No, it took years of practice and study.
Even in our own lives – we spend an ideal deal of time improving our skills at whatever tools we use to chill out. Whether it’s golf, fishing, sewing, cooking…whatever it is perhaps, we work at it to recover. Imagine if we spent that much time with the Lord. The great Henry Nouwen speaks of the best lesson of human trust he learned – from a family of trapeze artists. Imagine the trust the flyer needed to have within the catcher. Can you imagine that being refrained from days, weeks and hours of practice constructing trust? Nope, me neither. So it’s with us. God is our catcher. When we’ve faith, we want to proceed spending time with the Lord, learning from him, and letting him teach us. We must construct that relationship and learn to trust.
Four Words that Help Us Conquer Anxiety and Worry
When anxiety does strike – and it should – it will be significant to recollect 4 words: but God, and with God. Joseph spent a few years of forced anxiety – sold into slavery, committed into prison for a criminal offense he didn’t commit, and forgotten by a person who promised to assist him (Genesis 37-50.) His brothers, who had been those to sell him into slavery, returned to Egypt. When their father died, they were afraid that Joseph would take revenge. Yet, Joseph said this:
“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to perform what’s now being done, the saving of many lives.” – Genesis 50:20
You lost your job, but God….has a greater plan ahead for you. You were diagnosed with cancer, but God…had a plan so that you can comfort one other with cancer. Whatever your circumstances, God has a distinct plan than perhaps we do. We need only move forward with God—one step, in the future at a time, if obligatory. The following truths, once we proclaim them over our lives, fully trusting in God, have the facility to calm our anxiety:
- “I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” – Philippians 4:13
- “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all this stuff can be given to you as well. 34 Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” – Matthew 6:33-34
- “For the Spirit God gave us doesn’t make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline.” – 2Timothy 1:7
- “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not because the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let or not it’s afraid.” – John 14:27
- “He says, ‘Be still, and know that I’m God…’” Psalm 46:10
“Be still, and know that I’m God.” Know that his will – his perfect will – can be achieved. We need only trust in that. Sometimes, our pride and ego get in the best way – convinced we are able to fix it, we are able to control it, we are able to solve it, we are able to make it work. But, that just isn’t the lesson here.
How To Let Anxiety and Worry Go.
“Humble yourselves, subsequently, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all of your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” -1Peter 5:6-7
Cast all your anxiety on him. Not some, not a bit – all. Throw all of it onto his broad shoulders. Trusting God means letting go of our own control. It means letting go of our worries, our fears and our anxieties for the long run and leaving them within the hands of He who actually is on top of things. Yet – and be honest here – how often do you “leave it to God” after which simply take control right back?
There is an old story a few man who was mountain climbing within the mountains (of lovely Colorado, in fact.) He was admiring the spectacular fantastic thing about God’s creation from his awesome vantage point. Unfortunately, he did not pay close enough attention to his footing – and the bottom under him gave way. The man began to slip down the side of a 200-foot cliff, but just before he was to enter freefall, he managed to grab a good-sized tree root after which held on, literally, for dear life. But…he had no way he could climb as much as safety and there was nobody to assist him. No one, that’s, except God.
The man began to wish, “Lord, please help me out of this example. Please, Father, save me.” A voice got here out of the clouds, “Do you trust me?” The man knew in his heart it was the Lord. “Oh yes, Lord, you already know I trust you” the person yelled out. “Do you actually, really trust me?” the voice said. The man answered again, “Oh yes, Father, I actually, really trust you!” The voice boomed a 3rd time, “Do you actually, really trust me along with your whole heart and your whole soul?” “Oh yes, Father, please help me! My strength is about to present out. You know I trust you.”
“Then let go.”
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, in order that you could overflow with hope by the facility of the Holy Spirit.” – Romans 15:13
Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/AaronAmat
*Editorial Note: Sometimes, even the strongest faith cannot heal anxiety and worry. Please reach out when you feel anxious, depressed, or are having suicidal thoughts. There are professionals who can aid you get well a healthy mindset, and you need to never feel ashamed or as in case your faith is failing for needing help beyond prayer.
