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. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4:6-9
David Seamands is a former pastoral care professor at Asbury Theological Seminary and long-time Methodist minister. He has written some enlightening books on the healing of painful emotions. In one of his first books he writes, “Preachers have often given people the mistaken idea that new birth and being ‘filled with the Spirit’ are going to automatically take care of emotional hang-ups. But this just isn't true. A great crisis experience of Jesus Christ, as important and eternally valuable as this is, is not a shortcut to emotional health. It is not a quickie cure for personality problems.”
He goes on to write, “We need to understand this so that we can live compassionately with ourselves and allow the Holy Spirit to work with special healing in our own hurts and confusions. We also need to understand this in order to not judge other people too harshly, but to have patience with their sometimes confusing and contradictory behavior. In so doing, we will be kept from unfairly criticizing and judging fellow Christians. They're not fakes, phonies or hypocrites. They are people like you and me, with hurts and scars and wrong programming that interfere with their present behavior.” (1)
I want to begin to examine some personal issues that Christians face from time to time—some more than others. Hopefully, we can examine them in relation to our faith and understand, as Dr. Seamands said, that emotional issues are not a sign of weakness in the Christian walk nor is Christianity an instant cure for emotional issues. Let us move forward then with one issue, anxiety.
“Ron is twenty, healthy, handsome, and liked by his friends. Until recently, he was enrolled as a business major in a Midwestern Christian College, but in the middle of his sophomore year, just a week before finals, he dropped out. “I couldn't handle the anxiety,” he told his family doctor after arriving home. “During tests, I would break out in a cold sweat, my mind would go blank, and I would forget everything I had studied. After being at school for a while, I stopped going to lectures. They were too scary because I was afraid I might forget something that would be on the test. By the end of the quarter, I was uncomfortable even going into the academic building. Then I stopped going to the coffee shop because I was afraid I would meet one of my teachers. By the end of my time in school, I was almost too anxious to leave my room.”
Ron is a Christian. He has a marker in his Bible at Philippians 4, and he has underlined Verses 6 and 7: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, 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.” But, despite his prayers, Ron feels no peace. Instead, he feels panic as he anticipates looking for a job, now that he is out of school. “What if nobody will hire me?” he wonders. “What if I find a job and can't do it? What if I get too anxious to go to work?”
The doctor prescribed some anti-anxiety medication for Ron and suggested he contact a counselor. The calming effects of the anti-anxiety medication enabled Ron to make an appointment for counseling. Together, Ron and his counselor will try to understand the reasons for his intense anxiety. They will probably consider ways to relax and cope with stress, including the stress of a new job.
Ron's parents accept the idea of counseling, but they are impatient for improvement. His father is a highly successful, achievement-oriented businessman who likes to see things accomplished quickly. He has little patience with his son seeing some kind of “shrink” and hopes that all of Ron's anxieties will be gone soon.” (2)
Anxiety has been called “the official emotion of our age.” It can vary in intensity and influence. Every person has experience with some sort of anxiety. Whether it is a speech you had to give, a test you had to take, a prayer you had to present, a doctor's visit you had to make, or a result you had to wait on. But anxiety can also be a chemical imbalance in the brain. It seems to come from the unknown. It can manifest in many physical ways, and the worst response you can get from anyone is “It's all in your head.”
Sometimes you can use relaxation techniques, self-talk exercises, meditation, or any number of things you can read about in the self-help section of the local bookstore. Sometimes, if you have a chemical imbalance that does not respond to the former techniques, you may be prescribed anti-anxiety medication.
At any rate, I am speaking about an issue we are all familiar with. So what does the Scriptures have to say about this? What comfort or prescription does the Christian faith give us to deal with anxiety and worry? I want to examine three.
I. Pray Regularly (3)
In Counseling Insights, the staff at Insight for Living writes about four aspects of prayer. First, before we pray, we need a healthy image of God. We should be guided by images that are filled with warmth, concern, protection, strength, and security.
An anxious person may unknowingly have fearful images of God, such as distant, cold, and judging. Some of us have unhealthy images of God. Some of us believe that we are not worthy enough to approach His throne. Some of us believe that we are not good enough for our prayers to even be heard. The truth of grace eludes us.
Second, is it possible that we can let all of our bottled up emotions out in the safe haven of the presence of God? Some of us think that we have even tricked God into only seeing our presentable self, when, in fact, God knows us better than we know ourselves. By understanding who God really is (and developing a healthy concept of God), can we be free to share the myriad of emotions we hide from the world?
Third, can we add the component of thanksgiving to our prayer life? Have you ever felt really sorry for yourself and then passed by someone who was in a worse situation than you, and yet they are thankful? There are always things to be thankful for, even amidst adversity.
Four, is it possible for us to rid ourselves of unnecessary guilt through the use of confession in our prayer? Is it possible to ask for forgiveness while at the same time recognizing that it doesn't mean anything except that we are human to confess our sin to God? Confessional people are healthy people free from the baggage of unhealthy guilt.
II. Think Correctly (4)
Romans 12:12 says that a person is transformed by the renewing of his or her mind. There are many references in scripture that, in essence, argue that what we think about determines how we feel. Can we examine some of our thoughts and thinking patterns that may be yielding unhealthy results? Here are some of the myths that clutter the mind of an anxious person.
Myth #1: “If I fail, the pain will be terrible and the damage irreparable.” Yet what is failure? And if we fail, haven't we gotten up before? Much anxiety can revolve around what other people think of us. Or rather, what we think other people think of us. But does what they think of us really matter in the end, even if our perception is correct? Only God's perception of us matters.
Myth #2: “If I work hard enough, I can keep everything under control.” We know on some level that we lack control over what other people do. It is my contention that the feeling of being out of control leads to great anxiety. The way I get on a plane would make you think I was in control of everyone's safety and pleasure. I have more anxiety on a flight than the pilots, and there is not one thing I can do about whether we land or crash. I cannot control how you will respond to a sermon, yet with the anxiety that accompanies my sermon preparation, you would think it was up to me to make everybody happy and receptive.
Myth #3: “The world is filled with danger and evil.” Certainly there is an element of truth to that, but the world is also filled with relative safety and goodness. People die with terrible disease, but they also survive terrible illness. We cannot live our lives in a glass box. Our anxiety level can have a lot to do with what we are thinking. Examine your thought patterns. Are they fueling anxiety?
III. Focus on Today
“Some of us are crippled by the mistakes of the past. We lie awake at night reliving the past and anticipating the future. No teaching is clearer than this one: The past is gone. Scripture affirms in Isaiah 1:18: “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” We cannot do anything about yesterday, but we can do something about today.
Jesus thought this subject was so serious that he devoted a portion of the Sermon on the Mount to it. In Matthew 6:34, Jesus said, “Do not be anxious about tomorrow.... each day has trouble of its own.” Today is the only day we can be certain of.
Norman Vincent Peale has a marvelous illustration that conveys this point. He writes that when he and his wife would drive up to their summer place they would often arrive at night. A rough path of stepping-stones led from the parking area to the house. On stepping out of the car, with flashlight in hand, he discovered that it would not illuminate the entire path, just the stones directly in front of him. However, by stepping from one stone to another, he could reach the house quite easily and safely. That is how life is best lived—focusing on one day, one step, and one task at a time. Our little friend Charlie Brown is another good example. He failed to identify with the one-day-at-a-time lifestyle when he said, “I've developed a new philosophy; I only dread one day at a time.”
Some people live in a constant fear or anxiety that something tragic is going to happen. Take, for instance, the man who was woken by his wife. She heard a burglar downstairs. So he got up from bed, went grumpily downstairs, and found himself staring into the barrel of a gun. The burglar ordered him to hand over all of the household valuables, and then, after having all he wanted, started to leave.
The husband stopped him. “Before you leave,” he said, “I'd like you to come upstairs and meet my wife. She's been expecting you every night for over thirty years.” Sometimes you have to redevelop your sense of humor when you have been overwhelmed with anxiety.
Finally, we have to decide who ultimately holds our lives in the palm of His hand. Can God be trusted? We need to focus in on our faith and not our fear. Betsie ten Boom was imprisoned and treated brutally in Ravensbruck Concentration Camp during World War II. Before dying there, she said to her younger sister Corrie, “If ever you get out of this place, go and tell the world that no matter how deep the pit, He is deeper still.” No matter how deep the pit, God is deeper still.” (5)
Wow. That is the faith of saints, it would seem. Amazing faith. But even more amazing is God: the God of yesterday, today, and tomorrow; the God who does not change; the God whose son, Jesus, was raised from the dead; and the God who stretches out His hand and invites you to come and lay your heavy burdens before Him, leave them, and live for Him.
Sources Consulted:
(1) HEALING FROM DAMAGED EMOTIONS by David Seamands, 1981.
(2) CHRISTIAN COUNSELING by Gary Collins, 1988.
(3) COUNSELING INSIGHTS, VOLUME 1, Fear and Anxiety, by INSIGHT FOR LIVING, 1998.
(4) COUNSELING INSIGHTS, VOLUME 1, Fear and Anxiety, by INSIGHT FOR LIVING, 1998.
(5) EXCERPTS FROM, What Are You Afraid Of? DYNAMIC PREACHING SERMON TREASURY CYCLE 2-A, SEVEN WORLDS CORPORATION, 1999.
