Tag: anxiety

Posted in anxiety, Circumstances, Jesus, Joy, Light, Lighthouse, paul, Prayer, worry

Do not be anxious about anything.

Posted on by narciejeter

As my niece entered middle school, my mom told her, Jesus gives us peace.  You can access it anytime by just calling on the name of Jesus.  She can tap into that hope anytime because she’s a daughter of the Most High King as a follower of Jesus.  I picked these verses specifically for today as we are all feeling anxious in this world.  Watching the news, seeing horrendous images, rising food prices through inflation, shrink flation, rising gas prices, and the angst, bitterness, and division that creep into our cars, buggies at the grocery store, lining up at checkout lines and in extension the way in which we talk and interact with one another, in person and online, we desperately need the words of Philippians.

Listen to Paul’s words to the church at Philippi.

Philippians 4:4-7

4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5 Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

We as a people are naturally anxious about everything.  And this verse tells us to not be anxious about anything.  Ann Landers, in her advice column, used to get about 10,000 letters a month about people’s problems. She was asked, what is the number one problem that people have? She said the number one concern of most people is anxiety. She said people are afraid of losing their health, afraid of losing their wealth, afraid of losing loved ones. She said people are afraid of life itself.  Your mind can distort anything into a worry or a fear, especially when we are tired, rundown and already in a stressful situation.  Go on a walk.  Listen to Christian, Gospel or any kind of music that makes you chillax.  Read the Word of God.  Get centered with a devotion at the start or end of your day.  It seems we put off the exact things that will help us, when we get stressed out over our to-do lists and worries.

When Paul wrote this letter, he was in prison and sentenced to death.  He wrote this letter on death row.  We think we have it bad.  Paul was literally chained to a Roman soldier and guarded day and night.  And yet he could still write, “Do not be anxious about anything . . .”  He had been shipwrecked, beaten, ridiculed, stoned and abandoned and he still said, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice!”  You and I were made not made for a fearful, anxiety filled life, we were made for joy.

The North Carolina Poet Carl Sandburg understood that. He once wrote about children:

You were made for joy, child.

The feet of you were carved for that.

The ankles of you run for that.

The rise of rain,

The shift of wind,

The drop of a red star on a far water rim . . .

An endless catalogue of shouts and laughters,

Silent contemplations

They made you from day to day for joy, child, for joy. 

The question is how do we tap into that joy that is available to each of us?  

The insightful writer Isak Dinesen said, “God made the world round so that we would never be able to see too far down the road.” And that’s true. We can’t see down that road. That itself is the cause of anxiety for many of us.  Sadly, we often look down that road with fear rather than with faith. But we’re not supposed to.  1 John 4 says, “Perfect love casts out fear.”  Some translations say it “expels” all fear and it’s not just sometimes or sometime in the future.  We have God’s promise and God’s peace now.  

I heard a commentator this past week say we take Jeremiah 29:11 out of context.  He accused us of not looking at what was really happening in the Babylonian exile.  What if we knew the context all along?  What if we knew it wouldn’t be a quick fix?  What if we knew it would take time?  But we take God’s peace and promise with us in the exiles of our lives.

Jeremiah 29:10-14, 10 For thus says the Lord: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11 For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. 12 Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. 13 When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, 14 I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.”

See the Israelites were in a spin cycle of sin all throughout the Old Testament and they pushed God to act as the Loving Parent giving them consequences.  70 years certainly takes the long view, but the promise is the same.  God’s promises are the same yesterday, today, and forever.  We do not fear or let the anxiety monster grab us because we trust in the Lord, the maker of heaven and of earth.  No matter how long it takes, no matter what circumstances we’re in, as Nehemiah 8:10 says, “The joy of the Lord is my strength.”  We grasp tightly to joy because it is a presence we encounter. As the German theologian, Moltmann puts it, “God weeps with us so that one day we may laugh with him.”  God came down to earth to dwell among us, to walk with us, right beside us.  He knows our anxiety and tendency to fret and worry.  What did the angels say to the shepherds in Luke 2:10-11, “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people:  to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”  Joy.  Not just wishy-washy joy, but a joy that lasts.

In his book Talking to Ducks, James A. Kitchens explains there are two major types of joy: internal joy and external joy. Internal joy comes from within, but external joy comes and goes with whatever is happening in our environment. It is extrinsic because it arises from the outside. When the circumstances change in a good direction, joy comes. When fortune reverses, joy leaves. Internal joy stays with us regardless of our external circumstances.

Pastor Anthony Evans tells about the night that darkness descended on New York City during the blackout of 2003.  Evans happened to be there that night and he witnessed the chaos. Manhattan, including Wall Street and the United Nations, was completely dark, as were all area airports and all rail transportation including the subway.

There was one exception to that darkness. Evans happened on a restaurant where people were lined up to get hot food. He reports that in this dark situation there was this one place with all this light and joy and music and laughter and warmth. He went over to the assistant manager and said, “Mister, I don’t understand. It’s dark everywhere. The airport is right over there and it’s dark. My hotel is right across the street and it’s dark too. Everything is dark, and yet you are lit up like a Christmas tree. How can this be?”

The manager said, “It’s really fairly simple. When we built this [place], we built it with a gas generator. We’ve got power on the inside that is not determined by circumstances on the outside. Even though there’s nothing happening out there, there’s plenty happening in here.”

Anthony Evans goes on to say, “When you accepted Jesus Christ, He came into the inside. So what’s happening on the outside shouldn’t determine whether or not you’ve got a lighthouse on the inside. What’s happening out there shouldn’t determine your joy. God has given us a generator of life and liberty in our souls through our relationship with Jesus Christ. We don’t have to live our lives determined by life’s circumstances.”  

That’s the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding.   How do we get that peace?  That joy?  Prayer plus thanksgiving equals an entirely different view of the world.

Pray

As some of you may know, there is a Bible App by a company called YouVersion which has 400 million users worldwide.  Every year the producers of this app announce the most popular Bible verse as chosen by its readers’ searches.

In 2019, the most popular verse in this online Bible was from our lesson for today, Philippians 4:6, in the New Living Translation. It reads like this: “Don’t worry about anything; instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done.” 

Verse 6 is written as a command. This is how we are to live. “Don’t worry about anything; instead pray about everything.”

Prayer is as simple as a breath.  A sentence, Lord have mercy.  A plea for strength. Intecessory prayer – prayer for the hostages and their families as well as the people of Gaza and those that area hurting all over the world.

Thanksgiving

There is a “Peanuts” comic strip where Charlie Brown says: “I’ve developed a new philosophy. I only dread one day at a time.”  Chuck, oh boy, in fact the opposite is true.  We are to be thankful for each day and count our blessings one by one.  When we are stressed or anxious, that is exactly the perfect time to name the good things God has given us.

Some people lose their joy and peace because they’re playing the comparison game, instead of giving thanks to God for what we have.  Futurist Faith Popcorn says that one possible downside of the Internet is the development of what she calls Comparative Anxiety.  The internet has created a networked world that allows everybody to compare everything, instantly. How much money are you making compared to people your own age who graduated from the same college? How many words does your baby know versus millions of babies her exact age, around the world?  It predicts that this ability to benchmark yourself in seconds with others is creating an increasing epidemic of comparative anxiety and a national wave of insecurity.

Joy is not a product of possessions, pleasure, busyness, affluence, or accomplishment. Joy is the experience of knowing that nothing, not sickness, failure, famine, war, or even death can separate us from the love of Christ.

Joy is a choice we make. Life can make us bitter or it can make us better. It can leave us grumbling or make us grateful.  By remembering to give thanks for the little things, we develop a habit of thankfulness. It won’t happen overnight, but it will change how we view the world.

That brings me to the Big Picture.

Ken Lindner is CEO of Ken Lindner & Associates and the author of the book, Crunch Time: 8 Steps to Making the Right Life Decisions at the Right Time (2004). Ken is also a championship Paddle Tennis player.

A few years ago, Ken’s team lost in the final round of a national Paddle Tennis tournament. Ken was determined to learn from this disappointment. So, he decided to go up into the stands and watch the winning team play a few rounds.

Ken got an entirely different view of the game and of his opponents when he saw them play from up in the stands. From up there, he could see the Big Picture. He recognized the other teams’ techniques, their strategy, their weaknesses. As Ken sat there and soaked up a whole new perspective on his opponents’ game, he realized that he could apply this wisdom to every part of his life. As he writes in his book Crunch Time, “The lesson was: Far too often, while fighting our day-to-day battles on the ground, we never look beyond ourselves, or the immediate moment, situation, need or craving at hand. Therefore, we fail to view things from the fuller, richer, wider context of the Big Picture.” 

When we walk with God, we are able to take a Big Picture view of our lives. We are able to replace worry with trust, choose a gratitude attitude, and focus our thoughts on those things that are not of this world – the peace that this world doesn’t understand because it’s not from this world – Jesus.

A Catholic priest named Johannes Tauler tells of meeting a poor man along the road one day. “God give you a good day, my friend,” said Tauler.

The poor man answered, “I thank God I never have a bad day.”

Tauler, astonished, kept silent for a moment, then added, “God give you a happy life, my friend.”

The poor man answered, “I thank God I am never unhappy.”

“Never unhappy!” cried Tauler, “What do you mean?”

“Well,” came the reply, “when it is sunshine—I thank God, when it rains—I thank God, when I have plenty—I thank God, when I am hungry—I thank God; and since God’s will is my will, and whatever pleases God pleases me, why should I say that I am unhappy when I am not?”

Tauler looked upon him with awe. “Who are you,” he asked.

“I am a king,” said the poor man.

“A king?” Tauler asked, “Where is your kingdom?”

The poor man smiled and answered simply, “In my heart.” 

As followers of Jesus, we carry around a kingdom in our hearts. We grumble and complain and are fearful and anxious sometimes, but we’re still sons and daughters of the Most High King.   Trying our best and growing in sanctifying grace.  We are the recipients of God’s promises and God’s incredibly gracious love and mercy. If we really understand that, our joy will overflow. If you want to be set free from your circumstances, your stresses and your worries, then follow the instructions God gave us to live in joy: replace worry with trust in God, don’t compare yourselves with others, develop an attitude of gratitude, and think of the bigger picture.  Good wins.  The light DOES overcome the darkness.  Take a deep breath of the Holy Spirit, call on the name of Jesus and let him fill you up with joy and peace, and God will be your strong tower and sure foundation. 

Posted in Anger, anxious, Chosen, Emmanuel, exile, Fear, God, Identity

Worry

Posted on by narciejeter

Isaiah 43:1-7

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life. Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; I will say to the north, “Give them up,” and to the south, “Do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth— everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

How many times have you heard those words, or something similar? The song, “Don’t worry, be happy” is certainly catchy, but not as “Hakuna Matata.” Maybe what you heard was a distinctive New York accent saying, “Fuggedaboudit!”

Those four words — “Don’t worry about it” — are, in combination with each other, possibly the most useless words in the English language.  You could say “no worries” and the words could mean very different things.  Someone could say them honestly “no worries” and it means genuinely don’t worry about it or they could say “no worries” because they’re really mad that you made something they cared about seem trivial or you said something to hurt their feelings and when they saw it, they brushed it off.

They’re useless not because banishing worry isn’t a good idea. Certainly, it is. Duh.  “Don’t worry about it” is advice routinely ignored and impossible to obey.  It’s a clichéd phrase that often doesn’t get at the weight or depth of the issue.

Some psychologists — borrowing language from medical science — draw a distinction between acute anxiety and chronic anxiety. Acute anxiety, they say, is related to some immediate threat. Leonardo DiCaprio when he comes face to face with the grizzly bear in The Revenant has acute anxiety.  You could say he’s experiencing acute anxiety and fear for most of the movie because he just reaches the double digits with his lines.

Yet, if you wake up each morning with a sense of free-floating dread, but have little idea where those dark forebodings come from — nor any idea when or how you’ll break free from them — then chances are, you’re a victim of chronic anxiety.  My mom calls this the worry cycle.  When you wake up every morning going down the list of worries…your family…your classes…your job…that particular test…that girl or guy that you like…what am I going to this summer…

The word “anxious” is historically related to a Latin word, angere, which literally means “to choke or strangle.” I figured it meant something along the lines of nervous, but I didn’t know it meant to choke or strangle.

There’s another English word that traces its lineage to the same Latin root. The word is angina — the sharp, piercing pain that precedes a heart attack. Angina arises when one of the coronary arteries becomes choked off by arterial plaque, blocking oxygen from reaching the heart muscle.

Anxiety, in other words, can kill you, if you let it fester.

Another English word that grows out of this Latin root, angere, is “anger.” Anxious people, as it so happens, are often angry people. They sense the breath of life being choked off from their soul, and so they lash out, flailing wildly in an effort to remove the threat, whatever they imagine it to be.

Anxious. Angina. Anger.  It would be so easy to link this to Star Wars as leading to the Dark Side, but I won’t.  In our 24 hour news cycle, we’ve gotten numb to the headlines. Would you say it is worse now, more violent now, more worrisome now?

Although we may imagine ourselves the most anxiety-ridden people ever, gazing back longingly, a quick look at the Scriptures reveals this is hardly the case. Speaking God’s word to the community of Israelites in Babylonian captivity, our text reminds us: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. … For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior” (vv. 2-3).  The good news of the salvation oracle in Isaiah 43 is that God directly addresses this experience of exile.

It can be hard for us to conceive just what Jewish people went through as they were uprooted from their homes, and transported to the Babylonian capital. Not everyone was compelled to relocate, of course — just the political, intellectual and economic elite, the ruling class. The Babylonian rulers seem to have followed the advice, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” Settling the cream of Judah’s leadership in comfortable quarters, in a neighborhood of the city all their own, the Babylonian overlords made certain there were none from the defeated nation’s leadership who could raise a rebellion back home.

The entire identity of the Jewish people, by contrast, was rooted in their theological understanding of the land. They were proud to be the chosen people Moses had led out of Egypt to claim the land of milk and honey for their own. The land was the principal sign of the Lord’s favor, the continual reminder that they lived in a state of divine grace. The temple mount in Jerusalem was the spiritual center of their universe.   Remember God’s broader plan of salvation is for ALL people, unlike what those Turlington preachers say, but God focused attention on the shocking particularity of God’s love for this one people, Israel, for whom God would pay any price.

When all this was suddenly snatched away from them, not only for their immediate physical circumstances, but, also, whether they could maintain an identity as the Lord’s chosen people without that tangible reality of the Promised Land. They also wondered how they could worship God apart from the cherished temple rites. Their cry of despair is echoed in Psalm 137:4: “How could we sing the LORD’S song in a foreign land?”

Isaiah assures them. He gives the people a word from the Lord. “I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” Who but the Lord could accomplish such a wonder, redeeming the exiles from their hopeless situation? How could such a miraculous release from their captivity happen, unless the Lord willed it? This prophetic passage pictures the exiles’ journey home, passing even through rushing rivers without hindrance or danger.

The image of passing safely through the waters may recall Song of Songs 8:7: “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.” What miraculous power is it that brings the exiles home, across the mighty Euphrates, but divine love?  How is it that God can bring us out of the muck and mire of our own lives and set our feet on solid ground?

God is with us.  We are not the first generation of human beings to feel inundated by worry. True, we often use our mass-communications technology to construct an echo chamber to amplify our natural anxieties, but the fundamental psychological fact of worry is no different. By nature, we are a worrying people. At times, worry keeps us appropriately vigilant so we may fend off tangible threats. Yet, more often than not, it’s simply a burden.

Yet the Bible in today’s text reminds us that we need not fear.

We can live without anxiety because:

– God created us – In John Wesley’s notes he wrote about this particular passage.  “I have not only created them out of nothing, but I have also formed and made them my peculiar people.”  God formed us.  When you build or create something, you know it inside and out. God, as our Creator, knows us better than we know ourselves. Moreover, the text says, God redeemed us, God calls us by name and God says “you are mine.”

So worry is a lack of trust. If we truly believe that God says, “You are mine,” then how can we be anxious about the things that cross our paths?

This does not mean that there will not be waters to pass through, or fires to put out, but God promises to be our faithful shield and strength.

Such anxiety does not honor the God who created us, calls us by name and not only says “You are mine,” but “you are precious in my sight” (v. 4).

I invite y’all this week as worries or fears flood your minds and hearts, that you come up with 3-5 word phrase like, “Lord have mercy” or “God give me peace” that you say in your head as these thoughts come unbidden.  The Holy Spirit will lead and guide you and we as a community will be here for you.

The Bible says that we should “Cast all your anxiety on God, because God cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). Here, the writer echoes the comforting voice of Isaiah the prophet.
Two Days We Should Not Worry

There are two days in every week about which we should not worry; two days which should be kept free from fear and apprehension.

One of these days is Yesterday with all its mistakes and cares, its faults and blunders, its aches and pains.

Yesterday has passed forever beyond our control. All the money in the world cannot bring back Yesterday.

We cannot undo a single act we performed; we cannot erase a single word we said. Yesterday is gone forever.

The other day we should not worry about is Tomorrow. With all its possible adversities, its burdens, its large promise and its poor performance, Tomorrow is also beyond our immediate control.

Tomorrow’s sun will rise, either in splendor or behind a mask of clouds, but it will rise. Until it does, we have no stake in Tomorrow, for it is yet to be born.

This leaves only one day, Today. Any person can fight the battle of just one day. It is when you and I add the burdens of those two awful eternities Yesterday and Tomorrow that we break down.

It is not the experience of Today that drives a person mad. It is the remorse or bitterness of something which happened Yesterday and the dread of what Tomorrow may bring that renders a person wild with anxiety. Let us, therefore, live but one day at a time.

–Author unknown.

Matthew 6:25-34 says it this way, “25 ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?* 28And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” 32For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33But strive first for the kingdom of God and his* righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 ‘So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

Chronic anxiety — unlike the acute variety — isn’t based on outside threats. It rises from within. Psalm 46:1 says, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”  The great God of the Universe knows your name.  And some of y’all may freak out at that.  Don’t worry.  Confident that you are more than your name, that you are first and foremost a baptized and beloved child of God, you can look at the world, and even around your neighborhood, with new eyes.  How would that affect how we live?  If we know the Living God?  How would that shape us being in the world?  Do we spread peace that way?  Would that affect how we see the challenges that come daily into our personal world?  And the broader world?  I’ll let you wrestle with those questions.  It’s easy to say what we would do, it’s much harder to banish worry from hearts and minds, to act as peace agents in the world, seeing if we could help, only a little, and trusting God will be our strong fortress……all the days of our life.  Amen.