Mortgage. Bankruptcy. Unemployment. Financial hits. Bad investments. Divorce. Breakups. Count the ways anxiety hits us like a ton of bricks. The face of adversity feels like life is more in control of us than we are of it. So half of our lives is panic about how downhill a situation is going to go, and the other half is floundering in human effort to redirect the outcome of our negative circumstances. Either half of the pie, the wheels are in the mud with no traction. That is what is ironic about factors of anxiety and depression. The more human effort applied, the worse the outcome gets. It is like a man who sits on a pot of money, buries it in the backyard, pulls it out 15 years later, and inflation has rendered the amount paltry. The paralysis of anxiety will lead you to hold on to what you do have, and still loose it anyway because you fail to realize your life is not in your hands to begin with. God, who reigns in Heaven, holds all peoples lives together, and causes the rain to fall on disciple and pagan alike, ordains all things according to His purposes, with no promise of prosperity. The hurly burly of anxiety will cause you to carelessly make decisions because your fears, not your God given sense of reason, is at the driver’s seat. But if sitting on your hands and being preoccupied with a situation causes bad decision making, in response to anxiety, how do you handle anxiety?
How bad is anxiety in this day and age? The trend of anxiety seems to be a question of whether the anxiety is temporary, or long-term. Temporary state of anxiety is considered under a six month threshold, while generalized anxiety disorders are stated to occur over a six month period and beyond. (1.) That much anxiety over a six month period; talk about a boat load of insecurity. The difficulty often becomes what is the root cause of such anxiety. Sometime anxiety is an absence of security in God’s provision, and thus, has a spiritual root of sin in the causation. However, contradictory to John MacArthur’s conventional assertions, not all factors are purely sin based in causation. Some anxiety disorders, much in the same vein as depression, have neurotransmission issues at their influence. Three of the biggest players considered are serotonin, dopamine, and even gaba (gamma-aminobutyric acid), though the research is not conclusive on the matter. (2.) So anxiety is a serious matter, and should be treated as such, with all factors being taken into consideration.
Being that only a counselor, therapist, or psychiatrist can give a clinical diagnosis, and only medical professionals, such as psychiatrists, can offer recommendations for pharmaceuticals to treat general anxiety disorder, the article will tackle anxiety that is circumstantial, and based on a pattern of living. A common concern in anxiety is over finance. The nature of finance is that the factors that it effects, namely food, water, housing, and childcare, are an ever-present trigger of anxiety. The reality of needing to attend to the needs of basic survival does not dissipate; on the contrary, it compounds daily. Some days you are at work and doing well; other days you get the pink slip and you have to downsize to make ends meet. So how do you keep up your spirits in the time of struggle to make ends meet? Here the words of Matthew 6:25-34, and meditate on it.
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look 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?27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?[g] 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. (3.)
God gives provision to the Jew and the Gentile, for He has no partiality, as Romans 2:9-11. A fact that is often ignored when men of God complain about prosperity of the pagan, in contradiction to the whole plotline of the book of Job. Good and evil fall on the righteous (those who have received grace) and the unrighteous (those who are strangers to grace). God is not stingy when it comes to blessing His creation; He longs to lavishly bless you and give you hope. He does so according to His purposes and glory, and when He blesses, prayers of adoration and thanks are in order. Let not your fears of the future cloud God’s nature and being to where you are blind to God’s working.
One of the greatest stumbling points that stirs anxiety is an absence of the sense that God is Sovereign. Often, we give lip service to God’s omnipotence and omnibenevolence in word and paper, but not in practice. This is not to our benefit, but to our detriment. To believe that God has our best interest in heart, we must live like our every day provision is from Him, because it is. Here are a few good words about the Sovereignty of God.
This governing activity of God extends over a large variety of areas. God is described as controlling nature. Particularly dramatic evidence of God’s power over nature can be seen in the case of Elijah, who told Ahab that it would not rain except by word of God, and it did not rain for three-and-a-half years, and who prayed at Mount Caramel for God to send down lightning from heaven, and it was done……
The Lord is also sovereign in the circumstances of the lives individual persons. Hannah, inspired by the miraculous answer to her prayer (the Lord had given her a son, Samuel), expressed her praise: “The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts” (1 Sam. 2:6-7). (4.)
All of nature, all of humanity, all of the cosmos under God’s Sovereignty, and we question His provision of our basic needs? Only irrational fear and anxiety, not faith, motivates our questioning.
How do we abate our fears and exercise trust in God? Philippians 4:6-7 tells us to not be anxious, but in everything, by prayer and petition, and with thanksgiving, we should let out requests be made known to God (ironically, Him knowing them already). Then the peace of God is promised to us, which surpasses all human understanding. The route to abate and alleviate anxiety will have many knots to untie, much like depression, but the starting point is to pray to have our needs made known, and will God will provide according to our need and His glory. How help comes often never appears as we might expect it. Sometimes, it come in the form of a new and better job. Other times, it is the aid and provision of the body of Christ. The author likens the faith we should have in God’s provision to that of a farmer or hunter. Both men must labor in their craft, becoming skillful in their capacity to provide. However, no matter how skilled they are, no matter how hard they work, no matter how much they prepare, they are dependent on God’s provision. If the farmer has no rain, his crops are bad and he has nothing to sell or eat. If a hunter has no game to hunt, he labors in vain, and he has no food to bring home. This is not an exception from labor to provide; believers are to labor that they may attend to the needs of the members of the church. We, however, labor in dependence on God’s power to make the ends meet, not in human fallibility, finitude, and impotence to resolve our anxieties.
No one is saying anxiety is an overnight fix. It was not an overnight fix when Joseph was thrown into prison on a trump charge, and he did not fixate on his imprisonment wondering whether or not he would see a better day. Paul did not handle his imprisonment with anxiety about how the future played out for him. The Israelites would have had every reason for anxiousness in the face of being migrated into the Assyrian empire for Northern Kingdom Israel, and Babylon for Southern Kingdom Judah, but they were told to trust the plans the Lord had for them as a people. Make no mistake people. Walking with God is not a matter of waiting on better circumstances. It is proactively living the ministry of God in faith of God’s provision. Downsizing may be a part of living that ministry out. Taking a lower income job may be a part of it. Asking the members of the church to help you with your everyday needs may be a part of it. Do not sit on your inadequate ability to resolve a situation. That is pride, which rears its ugly head in the face of adversity to put a mask of strength on when fear is what we actually feel. Satan relishes it because it kills faith, sin loves it because it fuels transgression, and Hell loves it because the transgression it makes damns souls. Do not live in anxiety: it will physically, and spiritually, kill you.
(1.) Anderson, Neil T, D. Min; Terry E. Zuehlke, Ph.D.; Juliane S. Zuelke Christ Centered Therapy (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2000) p.271,
(2.) Graves, Julie, Dr. What Neurotransmitters are involved in Anxiety Disorders? (accessed at https://www.livestrong.com/article/94954-neurotransmitters-involved-anxiety-disorder/ on May 31, 2018, published August 14, 2017)
(3.) Matthew 6:25-34 (accessed at https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+6&version=ESV on May 31, 2018)
(4.) Erickson, Millard J. Introduction to Christian Doctrine (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 2001) p.141