Anxiety can be overwhelming. You can immobilize us and bring out every drop of joy in our lives. It can also have a big impact on us, physically and emotionally. A person suffering from ongoing anxiety may have to deal with symptoms such as mood swings, irritability, anger, etc. sweating, rapid heartbeat, chest pain, tiredness, lack of concentration, hair loss, weight gain or loss, panic attacks, insomnia and high blood pressure, and to name a few.
One writer says it this way: “Overwhelming anxiety occurs when I create lies. Can you regard your concerns as false prophets, do you say that God is not good, sovereign, and wise?
- People around the world are overwhelmed by this type of anxiety and it happens daily.
- I know it’s easier said than done.
- But we must stop hearing these lies.
- Anxiety is a major problem in our society and.
- As Christians.
- We must know how to combat this sin.
Paul instructs the Philippians about anxiety: “Don’t worry about anything; In everything, however, make known your requests before God, with prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving. (Fl 4. 6). Now you can read this and think, “What, are you serious, Paulo?Do you really expect me to go through life without feeling anxious?
I mean, do every mother on the planet know that feeling?Is this every mother’s nightmare? This happened to me once when I was shopping downtown. Suddenly, my four-year-old son, Bobby, disappeared. I did what any mother did: I called her by name, looked through all the hangers, looked under the tables and behind the boxes, over time and without knowing it I realized that she was getting serious, I involved the store team in the search. My heart was beating hard, every muscle in my body was tense, screaming inside and trying to hold back tears. My anxiety was on the roof.
So my mind started running in all directions, was he kidnapped?Can I really remember what I was wearing today?Maybe you had a moment like this, or maybe you never momentarily lost a child, but you’ve already been linked to the overwhelming anguish I describe, so I’m sure you can imagine the feeling of absolute relief and joy. He quickly got angry when I found my son curled up in the window with the mannequins.
Here’s the problem of anxiety: it seems perfectly natural. At the time, it seemed to me that I could have no answer but to be totally distressed by my missing son. But here is Paul, in Philippians 4, telling us clearly not to do it. worry about anything, how should we understand that?
At some level, anxiety can be a natural and normal human response to a scary situation, but Paul talks about being anxious, being active, that’s something we choose to do. So how do you combat this type of anxiety?
Paul’s answer is simple: pray (Phil 4:6). D. A. Carson once said, “I still have to find a chronic patient who enjoys an excellent life of prayer. “
Now I know it’s easier said than done, especially with the important things. A few years ago I was at a conference talking about a subject I knew very well, I was on stage when, in the middle of my speech, I didn’t know what to say, not that I just forgot. In fact, I had no idea what I meant, the next word, and I realized I couldn’t even read the words on my sheet, let alone remember where I was. Everyone thought I’d stopped to have an effect. At that moment, as I struggled with what was going on, I realized that something was wrong with me, I felt it had lasted forever, but fortunately it wasn’t and I managed to finish my speech.
From there I went through a long process of neurological tests, MRIs and other tests, it took centuries to discover the cause of the problem, I will not lie to you: there have been moments of distress. God’s grace brought me back to him in prayer. I had to trust that he knew what was going on, that he controlled sovereignly. I wasn’t afraid and I didn’t Google all the symptoms I was feeling. I was very happy to leave that to God. That in all situations we can trust God and know that He has them in his hands.
Kent Hughes gets to the bottom of the problem when he says, “Rest in God’s grace and stop panicking like someone who doesn’t know God. “When do we pray? We recognize that we need God. Quoting Hughes again, “When we pray, we present our demands, which reflect all possible cases of anguish,” do we put all our concerns on God and declare our absolute dependence on Him?
So here are some practical truths to remember as you fight the anguish of sin.
“Which one of you, as concerned as you are, can add a twist in the course of your life?(Matthew 6:27).
As another writer put it: “Instead of depleting your mental energy in the useless steed of ‘What if?’, Focus your thoughts on the Son of True, Honorable, Righteous, Pure, Kind, Laudable, Excellent, and Worthy, who loved and gave himself for you. and you’ll be happy to trust him.
Tony Merida says it very well: “Your gift of salvation gives us reason to rejoice. It eliminates our greatest fear and alleviates our deepest anxiety through its victorious death and resurrection. He paid the penalty for us.
We may think that our greatest need is to have a full stomach, a husband, children, a new home, a better job, but the reality is that our greatest and most urgent need comes from God. All too often we think we know what we need better than God right now. We must run, run, run toward God, and find satisfaction by trusting and resting.