Facing AnxietySample

GIVE IT TO GOD

One of the great lies of anxiety is that you have to deal with whatever the threat is. As we learned yesterday, anxiety is your brain’s self-defense tool…it sees a threat and tells your body what to do so you can survive. So, when you experience anxiety (even when the threat is imagined or not an actual life-or-death situation), your brain is telling your body that something is wrong and you need to take action to fix it. The problem with the anxiety many of us experience today is that there’s not really a clear action to take…what can we actually do to make this feeling go away when we aren’t sure where the threat is coming from? 

Fortunately, when God designed anxiety, He could see the potential for us to get stuck in it the way we do. So, He gave us some really clear instruction on what to do with it in the Bible. In just a minute, you’re going to read two of the clearest passages about anxiety, and here’s the big idea they both give: let God handle your anxiety! Go to God with it, tell Him about it…you can even tell Him you aren’t really sure where it’s coming from and you don’t know what to do about it…but you have to start with bringing it to God and asking for His help. When we do that, we’re promised that God’s peace will guard both our hearts and our minds. (Isn’t it interesting that the two parts of our body where we feel the sting of anxiety the most are the parts specifically mentioned in Philippians?) 

Listen, there are some practical steps you can take – things you can physically and mentally do yourself – that will really help with anxiety (and I promise, we’ll talk about those over the next few days). But, the very first thing we need to do with anxiety is give it to God. We admit that we aren’t in control of our lives or the world around us, but we recognize that God is. We tell Him what we’re dealing with, and we trust Him to help us. So, to begin your journey out of anxiety, start today by just talking to God about it. Read the following passages, and then just lay it all on God. Tell Him what’s up, ask for His help, and ask Him for that peace that He promises us. And for the rest of the day, whenever you feel anxiety starting to creep up, go right back to God and repeat the process.