A prescription for anxiety . . .

⁶ Don’t be anxious about things; instead, pray. Pray about everything. He longs to hear your requests, so talk to God about your needs and be thankful for what has come. ⁷ And know that the peace of God (a peace that is beyond any and all of our human understanding) will stand watch over your hearts and minds in Jesus, the Anointed One.  Philipians 4:6 – 7 (the Voice – translation)

I was sitting here and feeling myself getting anxious. 

I know what God has said about “stuff,” and yet right now I am beginning to feel anxious about it.  I have made a lot of promises to make payment.  I have promised to apply myself to numerous matters spending the same hours for multiple things.  I have health needs and family obligations.  I have work obligations and unknown responsibilities.  I have to make decisions with incomplete and imperfect information.  I have to trust peoples that I do not believe are telling me the whole story.  I have hopes unrealized and yet which if realized could dramatically affect my situation either positively or negatively. 

I felt my blood pressure rising and my heart beating like it was in my throat!  I wanted to scream and run for cover.  I wanted out!

It is during these times that I usually mess up big.  I do something that I know for a fact that I shouldn’t.  I say something I shouldn’t.  I go somewhere I shouldn’t.  In short . . . I simply stop trusting that God will take care of it, and begin acting like I have too.  Thinking that I have to make it happen, and knowing that I have none if any power to do so sends me into a downward spiral.  Why keep walking, as we Baptist would say, “the narrow way”?  Why keep doing the right stuff if I am going to end up destroyed anyway?  So screw that!  Right?! Just do whatever I want to.  Right?!

To my predicament Paul writes a command:

“Don’t be anxious about things; instead pray.  Pray about everything.”

Okay I can do that.  But for me that only seems to make me more anxious.  Listing out all the stuff to God, reminds me of just how helpless I am in it.  How in the world does he think this will help! Instead I know I will feel even more anxious.  I can’t stand this!!

But, it is not just a list that I am supposed to make, there are two other components which make for the solution to the anxiety.  “ . . . talk to God about your needs AND be thankful for what has come.”

My list is not supposed to be just a list that I mull over.  It is a list that I present to the God who is able to do something about it.  A listing of the impossible which I am supposed to present to the one for whom NOTHING is impossible.  A petition to the one who has made the heavens and the earth; who brought forth the trees, flowers and grass, and to whom all living creatures above and below owe their breath to.  It is to this God, the one Paul wrote: “Now to Him who is able do FAR MORE ABUNDANTLY BEYOND ALL  that we ASK OR THINK, according to the power that works within us, . . .”  Ephesians 3:20What power is that . . . . Christ the anointed one!  It is his Holy Spirit that lives moves and has its being within us!  That unlimited, all powerful, living spirit!  Tell THIS one about all these things that would worry us!

AND . . .

“Be thankful for what has come . . .”

In God’s mind it has already happened.  The answer has already been given.  The matter has already been decided in your favor.  He, God has already acted! The victory has already been done,  . . . it has already come!  SO I ask and give thanks to Him for His provision of the need, as it is already completed.

If you need $10,000 and your friend, who you know has a track record of keeping his promises to you and many more, tells you he will put the money into your account tomorrow morning, do you thank him when he tells you this or only after the money is in the account?  And after he has told you this, do you still walk around worried about the need, or do you go ahead planning and living as if it is already done?  Do you not thank him when he promises the money and live as if you have it coming?

How much more with God who has promised He will meet and supply our every need?  How much more with God who has a proven track record?  If we would thank a human before we receive it in the bank and live differently because of the promise, how much more should we do the same with God?  And if the promise is made, and you believe that it is done, and you have thanked him for it . . . What is left to be anxious about?

Answer:  Nothing.

The answer to my anxiety is to bring all the stuff to God and to thank Him for his promised provision of the need, even before I see it in my account.  Why?  Because he knows and has promised to keep me, and God is worthy of my trust.

And to this deliberate action of mine He adds a promise:

“And know that the peace of God (a peace that is beyond any and all of our human understanding) will stand watch over your hearts and minds in Jesus, the Anointed One.”

The peace of God – which will not make any sense to anyone, including myself – will guard my heart and my mind from anxious starts and my own stupid actions. 

Well here it comes God . . . .Thank you for having taken care of all of it.

I feel better already.  Time to go and sing in the rain!

Got Word?

Love yah,