The Great Depression # 3

A motorcycle officer named Terry Filbert noticed a passing vehicle with something that appeared to be dragging behind it. As he passed the vehicle, he saw the object was a basset hound on a leash.

"He was picking them up and putting them down as fast as he could," said Filbert. He chased the car to a stop, and Tattoo was rescued, but not before the dog reached a speed of twenty to twenty-five miles per hour, and rolled over several times. (The dog was fine but didn’t want to go out for an evening walk for a long time.)

There are too many of us who are like “Tattoo”, that is, every day we are "Picking them up and putting them down as fast as we can." We find ourselves hooked to schedules and obligations that we had no choice about and we find it difficult trying to free ourselves. Because of this, we hear a lot about “Anxiety Attacks” these days.

WHAT IS AN ANXIETY ATTACK?

Anxiety attacks occur the same way you might be attacked as you walked through the park or in the local mall by an evil predator.

You are living your life in the cool of the day and you find yourself...

.

• Driving down a freeway or…

• Reading a great novel or …

• Cooking a special dinner

… and suddenly you are struck (attacked) by an irrational and intense terror. Nothing in the outside world has changed, but your heart is racing, you're having trouble breathing, and you feel a sense of impending doom.

That is an anxiety attack (panic attack), a sudden surge of overwhelming fear that comes without warning and without any obvious reason. Some patients have such attacks only occasionally, while others may have several attacks a day.

Since the attacks are very frightening, many patients start to avoid situations in which the attacks have occurred, such as driving on an expressway or over bridges, shopping in large department stores or malls, etc. Agoraphobia is the term for such avoidance, which in severe cases can lead to being completely housebound.

The cure for these “Anxiety Attacks” is found in the Word of God. These vicious attacks come on us when we have taken on more than God ever intended for us. Stress is a way of life for many people. It is the only way some people know how to live their life. But the Word of God shows us there is another way and it is a better way.

So we can live a controlled life, let’s look at -

I. SOME THINGS WE SHOULD NOT BE CONCERNED ABOUT

Look at Matt. 6:25, we read, “Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on….”

The people that lived on earth when Christ was here had the same basic fears that we have today. Because this was a problem THEN and a problem NOW, the Lord gives us this passage of Scripture.

The people standing on that mountainside when He delivered the Sermon on the Mount were no different than you or me. They had to deal basically with the same set of problems we have to deal with, such as:

• Paying their bills

• Feeding their families

• Family problems

• Job security

• Foreign invasions

• Raising their children

• Paying their taxes

• Saving for the future

But when the Lord saw how fear was attacking them, He spoke these wonderful words to teach them to place their trust IN HIM, not IN THINGS!

What did He say to help them, and to help us? Notice, He did not do what many physicians today do. He did not turn them into a bunch of legal drug addicts walking around like they were lost in space.

Illus: It is appalling today to see what many medical doctors are doing to the American people and getting away with it.

WHAT ARE THEY DOING?

They are doing the same that many dope peddlers in this country are doing. They are pushing pills at every opportunity. The only difference between them and the dope peddlers on the streets is that they have a nice office to push drugs out of and a license to do it, and the dope peddler doesn’t!

But the great Physician did not do that to people He came into contact with that lived a life of fear.

WHAT DID HE DO? The first thing He did was to tell them to say “NO” to worrying!

Illus: When Nancy Reagan came out with her drug solution, “Just Say No!” there were some who made fun of her. Some said, “That is too simplistic, and you would expect more from the First Lady!”