Anxiety -
a feeling of worry, nervousness or unease typically about an imminent event or
something with an uncertain outcome.
Worry is
something I remember feeling for most of my life so I assumed the way that I
felt was normal. I remember relating to Telly Monster on Sesame Street. There
was always something to fret about, to be unsure about how something was going
to turn out.
As I got
older, I realized that maybe the amount of time that I spent thinking on and
worrying about things wasn’t normal. Sometimes it felt like my mind wouldn’t
turn off and thoughts and ideas had free roam within my mind. Physically, as a
teenager, I often felt sick to my stomach. This got severe enough that the
doctor had me sent for some form of test on my stomach to see if I had an ulcer
or any other condition that may have been making me feel this way. The test
didn’t find anything! The doctor wrote it off to possibly acid reflux and gave
me a prescription to help with the symptoms.
Life went
on and I graduated high school. I got accepted to Fanshawe College for civil
engineering. In my first year of college I made it to March break before I had
a breakdown and withdrew from the course. I regrouped, married Carly that
summer and got in to Fanshawe again, this time for Construction and Carpentry Techniques.
This time I made it through my course, but not without quitting my after school
job one month into the school year. The summer after, I remember searching for
an answer to the ways that I was feeling…on the internet. In the 10 months
since we had gotten married, I had quit 5 different jobs, I had stopped
answering the phone, and I had stopped contact with all of my friends and lost
interest in doing anything. The thought of going to work, having a conversation
with anyone, even being out in public caused my heart rate to skyrocket and
made me feel like I couldn't catch my breath. Then I found a website on
anxiety. I remember calling Carly into the room and proclaiming "I know
what's wrong with me! I have anxiety disorder!" And then I remember
literally collapsing into her lap on the couch and sobbing like I never had
before.
I was
fortunate to nail on the head where my issue lied. ANXIETIES! Unfortunately, I
was not at that time in a great place with my relationship with God… so rather than
turning to Him with these issues I made an appointment with my doctor. The
doctor put me on medication and set me up with a counsellor to help me
"sort through the underlying causes of my anxiety". I also turned to
a book. Unfortunately, instead of the bible, it was a book called "feeling
good". I got a little better…for a little while… I went back to work
at Kelsey's (where I had worked through high school and my first attempt at college)
because I knew I could be comfortable there and I wanted to be
comfortable.
You will
notice the questions in the mind of an anxious person are often focused on
something or someone other than Christ.
E.g.
"What am I supposed to do?"
"How am I supposed to do that?"
"Why is this happening to me?"
"What should I say?"
"What if they don't like me?"
What if,
how, why…the limits of my mental vocabulary at the time!
I needed
back then to be in the Word of God. Perhaps I would have read this: (Matthew
6:25-34)
“Therefore I say to you, do not worry 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? Look
at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns;
yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which
of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? “So why do you worry about
clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil
nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not
arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which
today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe
you, O you of little faith? “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we
eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these
things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all
these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all
these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for
tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own
trouble. (Matthew 6:25-34 NKJV)
I realize
now, anxiety is a symptom of you focusing on something other than the Gospel.
“Seek FIRST the kingdom of God..." and your other worries will fade
away. Anxiety shows your priorities. The things you are most worried about
are the things you won’t be able to stop thinking about. By focusing firstly on
God, secondly on others and then finally on yourself, you leave much less room
for the waves of anxiety to well up within you.
“…And you shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your
strength.’ This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this:
‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment
greater than these.”(Mark 12:30,31 NKJV)
(also Matthew 22:37-40 and Luke 10:27)
Jesus
said it and it was important enough that it was recorded 3 times! Focus on
loving God then focus on loving on others! Don’t worry about your needs first! He’ll
make sure you have everything you need! Loving God with all that you are is so
important. When you refuse to submit part of your life to God, He can’t use
that part.
We
weren't going to church at this point in time. We considered ourselves
Christians but I know personally, I didn't pray enough and I didn't read the
bible at all. I turned to the doctors and counsellors for answers and they had
some. The problem was that the world’s answers for anxiety are focused on
controlling symptoms. "There is no cure for anxiety" is what I was
told. If I wanted to feel normal I would need antidepressants and I would need
to practice breathing exercises and cognitive behavioral therapy.
The next
5 years were a roller coaster ride of ups and downs. One day, when I had a
stomach bug, I got so upset about being sick that it resulted in an ambulance
ride to the hospital. I thought I was dying. My arms, legs and face went numb.
My hands were having spasms so bad that I couldn't control what they were
doing. I was so concentrated on trying to not be sick that I was unable
to get my own body under control. On the ambulance ride, the guy in the back
with me kept saying "just calm down buddy! You need to take deeper breaths
and slow down your heart rate!" At the hospital they gave me some fluids
and Gravol and I finally started to calm down as the Gravol made me sleepy. I
realized rather quickly that it wasn't a stomach bug that sent me to the
hospital. It was my first full-fledged panic attack.
You see,
your concentration of thoughts dictates how you feel and ultimately how you
behave:
Thought ➡Emotion ➡ Attitude ➡ Behavior
If your
thoughts are making you feel angry you will ultimately act out in anger. If
your thoughts are making you sad, you will be the person who walks around with
a grimace on your face and nothing positive to say.
Proverbs 27:19 says “As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart.”
What this
tells me is that if you do not have a Christ-like attitude you will not act
Christ-like. If you are not seeing Christ-like behavior in your life it is
likely that your thoughts are not Christ-like!
Eventually
there came a point where the coaster ride hit such a low that I had nowhere
else to turn but back to God. A little over two years ago I went through a
time that shook me to the core and broke me so badly that I realized I needed
to be earnestly seeking God. My cry might have been similar to that of Jonah’s
in the belly of the whale.
He said, “I cried out to the Lord in my great
trouble, and he answered me. I called to you from the land of the dead, and
Lord, you heard me! You threw me into the ocean depths, and I sank down to the
heart of the sea. The mighty waters engulfed me; I was buried beneath your wild
and stormy waves. Then I said, ‘O Lord, you have driven me from your presence.
Yet I will look once more toward your holy Temple.’ “I sank beneath the waves,
and the waters closed over me. Seaweed wrapped itself around my head. I sank
down to the very roots of the mountains. I was imprisoned in the earth, whose
gates lock shut forever. But you, O Lord my God, snatched me from the jaws of
death! As my life was slipping away, I remembered the Lord. And my earnest
prayer went out to you in your holy Temple. Those who worship false gods turn
their backs on all God’s mercies. But I will offer sacrifices to you with songs
of praise, and I will fulfill all my vows. For my salvation comes from the Lord
alone.” (Jonah 2:2-9 NLT)
Sometimes
you have to hit rock bottom before you realize you’ve got it all wrong! “OK
God! I finally get it!” If we are trying to control our anxieties by getting
our own life in order we are attempting to clean up the mess that our thoughts
make rather than training our thoughts to stop making the mess. This would be
like having a water pipe exploding in your house and focusing on continually cleaning
up the mess of water spilling out everywhere instead of going to turn off the
water. The way to stop anxiety from affecting our lives is to allow God to show
us where our focus should lay. It is talked about often in the Word:
O
wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank
God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the
law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. (Romans 7:24, 25 NKJV)
If Jesus
is our deliverer, should our complete attention and focus not be on Him?
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to
God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is
that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. (Romans 12:1, 2 NKJV)
Our lives
are to be sacrificed to God. We owe him nothing less than our entire devotion
for the salvation He has offered through Jesus Christ. That means we won’t be able to live our lives
the way the world says we should. Trying to do so can only lead to conflicts of
interest which in turn can only lead to more anxiety!
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer
and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;
and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts
and minds through Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6, 7 NKJV)
PRAY! If
you don’t understand something or don’t know how something could possibly work
out for good, give it to God to handle. Letting it ruminate in your mind isn’t going to make it
go away.
Set your mind on things above, not on things on the
earth. (Colossians 3:2 NKJV)
When you
are focused on God’s plan and His works, you have much less time to be focused
on your own problems.
For those who live according to the flesh set their
minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit,
the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be
spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against
God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those
who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:5-8 NKJV)
Finally, brethren, whatever things are true,
whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure,
whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any
virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. The
things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and
the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:8, 9 NKJV)
I still
have rough days! I have days where I become so focused on myself and my problems
that I lose track of what God has set out for me that day. These are the days
that I lose out on the opportunities to share what God has done in my life with
someone or help someone who is in need. We need to realize that our anxieties
are provoked by the flesh in our lives. When we remove the thoughts of the
flesh from our mind we open ourselves up to the peace and life available through
Jesus. It takes practice! We need to pray, we need to be in the Word of God, we
need to be seeking the guidance of his Holy Spirit. We need to remember that it
is only through Christ Jesus that we will find peace, joy, hope…and eternal
life! Turn your focus to Him. Dedicate your life to His gospel and your
problems will seem smaller and of much less importance in the grand scheme of
things. This has been my journey. My lack of anxieties now has opened up my
life for God to use in ways I never would have thought possible even two years
ago! My hope and prayer is that if you struggle with worrying and anxiety, He can
and will do the same for you.
God
Bless,
Mike
