04 Mar Will God Take Away My Anxiety?

I’m not ashamed to admit, I suffer from anxieties. I have since i can remember. Some are old struggles by time standards, some came on as I gotten older. But one thing for sure, is that I have them. I’ve spoken to other people that have them. I know this because to have them is to be human.

There are countless of self-help books on the topic. Seminars taught by positive motivated speakers, who at the same time are no doubt struggling with anxieties of their own. Our anxieties may be different, some may be similar. Yours may be public speaking. If it is and your called to speak, that’s not a very good anxiety to have.

You’re in luck though. Because Moses suffered from the same exact thing. He wasn’t an elegant speaker and had a stutter. Which would get worse if he had to speak in front of people. The fear of looking stupid, that’s a good one. The fear of being judged. That’s an even better one.

The fear of looking foolish. The fear of being exposed as a person who struggles with anxieties. That you’re not as “sure” about yourself as you appear to be. Pastors and Ministers do that a lot. How was my Sermon this week? Was it effective? Did it reach anyone? Anxieties can be summed up by two words: “fear” and “insecurity”.

Show me a man that’s sure in all his ways, and I’ll show you a foolish man. Paul says to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Means work out your salvation cautiously and vigilantly and soberly. Never assume for the sake of assumption that you are correct in all the things that you do.

Always check and double-check your work and your life. Always examining your thoughts, because deception starts there first. Pursuing what’s right daily. Not just on Sundays. Not just during Bible Studies. But when your away from Church. When your away from home. When you’re unsure. When your confused. When you’re in pain.

When your suffering loss. When you’ve been hurt. These are the times when your most vulnerable, and anxiety will pounce on you like a Lion on to its prey. Anxiety is a real thing! A Self-help book or a speaker at a seminar will not cure anxiety. People take medication for this sort of thing. It’s that extreme. Jesus sweat blood while in the Garden of Gethsemane.

I am a habitual nail biter. I’m not even aware that I’m doing it half the time. It’s is due to my anxieties I’m sure of it. I’m not even ware that I’m doing it half the time. My hair is groomed, my pants are ironed, and my shirt is pressed. By all means I look the part. No sign of uncertainty. My hands tell a different story. Tells a story of anxieties. Developed when I was a child. That’s how long I’ve been doing it.

Some people do drugs and don’t even recognize there running from anxieties. Anxieties of abuse, neglect, low-esteem, depression, who are of the above! No one is immune to it. Sex can be used as a coping mechanism to deal with anxiety. Pornography and fornication.

These are not just tools of gratification. There also tools of escape.
It allows a person to get away from the anxieties. Takes their mind and their bodies off their troubles. We have developed all kinds of ways, wrong ways to deal with our anxieties and our fears. The Bible gives clear instructions on what to do in these situations. But frankly the Bible’s way of dealing with these things are just too darn hard!

I think Romans ch. 8 verse 38 and 39 along with Philippians ch. 4 verse 6 and 7 sums it up, though there are several other verses to choose from. These 4 verses cover the gambit of how we should deal with our anxieties and fears. What gets missed, is that there are times when we need to do something on our end, to help bring our anxieties into submission.

Some of us has suffered trauma. We need therapy. There’s no shame in that. You will be better equipped to handle your anxiety, but you have to first go get the help you need. God’s with you and he’ll put in the hands of the person you need to see. We won’t all be healed or delivered in our lives by just reading our Bibles. Somethings require the help of other people.

I can remember a distinct situation that I was struggling with recently. I was praying and I was pursuing, and the Lord responded in his time. And for the rest of that day, I was dead to the world. In a good way. It was the most at peace I’ve ever been in my entire life. It was a peace that surpassed any understanding that I have. It was something a drug could never give me.

But we can’t live there. That’s not where people live. It’s not realistic to walk around like that 24/7. You could have literally said the sky and I would have smiled and said, “have faith”. God gives you that when you needed. But we need to be here and present with our emotions, that’s where the afflicted leave. They live it 24/7. For them peace and stability are a foreign concept.

It’s a fleeting one for most of us a lot of times. Christ didn’t walk around like that. He was affected by the suffering of others around him. So we need to impacted by it also. Philippians Ch.4 verse 6 and 7 reads: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”.

I’ve done this plenty of times. I’m sure you have too. Whatever troubling circumstance you were going through that led you to that scripture, did not just disappear. Problems don’t just go away. God will give you wisdom to resolve them, or he will give you Grace to go through them. But they will not magically go away. That’s called a miracle.

By all means he can do. But we’re not talking about miracles. We’re talking about anxieties. Has that scripture and your prayers made your fears go away? Most things we fear required us to face them. Not avoid them. Through the various mechanisms we’ve come up with in our lives, that allow us to safely step around our anxieties and fears, so we can live to fight another day.

But anxieties actually do the opposite. They inhibit our living, by creating little prisons inside our minds and inside our hearts. They can stop God from doing the best things he can do in your life. Facing anxieties are the opposite of good time. Their nerve wrecking. We imagine the apocalypse taking place when we think about facing them.

Paul says in Romans Ch. 8 verse 38 and 39 that “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord”.

Imagine if Paul didn’t write this. Imagine someone else wrote it, and Paul sat in a tent in the depths of the Arabian desert, reciting this scripture day in and day out, waiting for his anxieties to fade away before leaving his tent. He would be long and dead in that same tent, suffering with those same anxieties.

He would have never almost single-handedly written the entire New Testament. What would you not have accomplished if you never left your tent? What have you not accomplished because you have not left your tent? God can work miracles, but he cannot do the extraordinary in the life of a person who is content with living in prisons.

If you are familiar with swimming, it’s hard for a lifeguard to save a person who’s arms and legs are wailing and kicking while they’re trying to pull them ashore. That’s me. That’s you. That’s us. Jesus is trying to take us somewhere and were kicking and screaming against the process. Do what Philippians Ch. 4 verse 6 and 7 said, then remember Romans Ch. 8 verse 38 and 39.

Don’t wait for your anxiety to disappear before you act. It never will. Move in-spite of the fear and uncertainty. Face it. Jesus is waiting for you on the other side. That’s where victory is found. On the other side.

I don’t know what you’re facing, but Christ is in the battle with you, and he’s on the other side waiting so you can celebrate the spoils of victory. Christ being with you is not evident by the absence of fear and anxiety. You will not find him in the absence. You’ll find him on the other side….