Anxiety: It’s Everywhere
Anxiety is a tricky beast. It can edge up on us before we know it’s there and seem to totally take over. There are many facets to anxiety and it can hide out in unexpected places inside of us. We ALL will struggle with it at some point in our lives… so don’t think you can escape having to learn how to deal with it. So what is it exactly? Well, anxiety is simply the feeling of uneasiness. It is a fear-induced response to what we perceive could be going wrong, sideways, or be really bad in our lives. It can stem from really big events or seemingly tiny things that somehow build and accumulate. Our anxiety response also fuels our felt-need to worry. Our minds can spin and spin rolling over detail after detail trying to fix what we believe is wrong even if it's only with our mere thoughts. This state of uneasiness can also take over our bodies, filling them with stress reactions like headaches and muscle tension or even lead to much bigger problems like outbursts of anger or even physical heart issues. Anxiety is a huge issue in our world today. In fact, some say it is the number one complaint among the younger generations. But like I said everyone struggles with it at some point in their life, so what in the world can we do?
First, it is super important to understand that this continuing experience of anxiety and unease is usually a trap of our own making (Some conditions can begin in our physical bodies due to predispositions, but most of us are stuck with this idea). As hard or even unknown circumstances come at us our thoughts get jumbled and lost on that worry loop and then our bodies follow suit. Our thoughts and our bodies then help us fall into old ‘resting places’. These old resting places however, rest on old lies, lies that we once thought protected us from danger. But what they really do is continue to draw us further away from the TRUTH.
TRUTH then is the real foundation, the starting place for breaking out of worry, unease, and anxiety. One really big problem with the world today is that it keeps telling us that - Me, myself, and I - can define what truth is. But guess what? … That is simply another lie.
So how do we get out of this trap of our own making? How do we stop being anxious? How do we even know what is true?
God and His Word have to be our foundation. He and the Bible have to be the Rock that we stand on. God is our Creator, so it stands to follow logic then, that He is the One who can help us solve the problem of anxiety. Jesus (who is God with skin on) declares in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life…” If we want to find the WAY out of anxiety, we have to follow Jesus and His ways. If we want to know the truth, we have to believe Jesus (actually declare and live out the truth). If we want to experience life to its fullest, we have to trust Jesus (because trust in Jesus is our resting place!).
Some of you may think, well I already believe those things… So why am I still anxious?
Until the truth becomes real and alive to you in all of the nooks and crannies of your life, until you get rid of the lies that are taking up the space in you where God’s truth needs to penetrate, anxiety can still get a foothold. Though that may be simple to say … It is not simple to undo… Especially by yourself.
Following, Knowing, and trusting Jesus is not meant to be done in isolation… we are called to be part of a local body of believers and we are called to be active participants! But it is also helpful to invite a trusted counselor to help you weed out lies, pray in truth, practice living in the truth, and walk out of anxiety and into healing. .
In 1 John 4:18 it says, “There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love.” We have this promise to rely on! His perfect love will cast out all our fear … we just need to follow Jesus, believe and trust in that promise, and do our part at bringing our anxiety to Him. This ‘bringing our anxiety’ to Jesus takes work - takes digging - lots of prayer - and attention. We can not will it away, nor just pretend it's not there, nor continue to just relax it away. These roots need to be dug up and weeded out (by the power of the Spirit) so that God’s perfect love can move in. Because this truth about Jesus and His Word is truly a rock we can stand on and be safe from all our fears.