Anxiety seems to run rampant. This is not a new thing during COVID-19, but it seems to have become amplified during these unique days. First, let’s be honest, not all anxiety is bad, nor does it arise to a level of medical concern. One definition for anxiety is “a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.” This sort of anxiety is normal.
If you are going for a job interview tomorrow, it is normal for you to feel a bit nervous about what is in front of you. In fact, that bit of anxiety is helpful, because the unease or nervousness can often help us to make sure that we plan well. A bit of anxiety about a job interview is associated with humility–with the realization that you aren’t God’s gift to the world and you need to put your best foot forward. Humility is not timidity. It is trust and confidence in who we are can Christ: Beloved and worthy, gifted and talented. A little anxiousness forces us to trust in the only one who is fully capable.
Now, many of you astute Bible readers are already pushing back against my argument. Paul, after all, warned us in Philippians 4:6-7:
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.
If God’s word says, “Do not be anxious,” and I say, “A little anxiety isn’t so bad,” I must be wrong. Unless, there is a difference between feeling anxious and living with anxiety. There is a difference between “feeling” anxious and “being” anxious. Another way to define anxious in Philippians 4 is “troubled with cares.”
The goal is not to avoid bad feelings, but to avoid going into bad places. Having bad feelings aren’t always a bad thing. Sometimes they keep us from danger or help us to grow. Anxiety is a reality for living in our world, but when we feel anxious, we can choose to be troubled with our cares, or we can take our cares to God. We can live in our anxiety or we can live in the peace of God. We can experience anxiety without being anxious.
But how? First, take it to the Lord. Pray for the peace of God to overwhelm our anxiety. But, do you trust him to take it? Do you give it to the Lord and walk away or do you sit with your anxiety?
Angela (my wife) is a very good mom. She wants our kids to not just grow, but to grow up. She is very good about giving them chores and making sure they know how to bee productive members of a home and of society. I want the same things she wants for our kids, but sometimes I struggle with follow through. She tells them to make their beds and then she walks away from it. If I’m not careful, I tell them to make their beds and then I keep looking in to make sure that the beds are made. I reprimand and cajole them for not doing their job. If I see them struggling, I am tempted to just go in and handle it myself.
Angela gives them a job. Sometimes I tell them about a job that needs to be done, but I never actually give them the job.
The same can be true for our anxiety. We talk with God about our troubles, our cares, and our worries, but do we give them to him?
Do you pass it off and walk away or do you keep looking in to make sure he has it, ready at a moment’s notice to take it back for your own?
Giving our troubles to the Lord must mean just that. We have to give him our troubles and then walk away. Sometimes, literally. Go for a walk. Go work a puzzle. Go lift a weight. Go build a treehouse. Find a hobby that takes you’re mind off of your troubles and worries. Hobbies have a way of rescuing us from sitting with our troubles. Our hobbies can give us an escape. Recreation, after all is actually re-creation. Our hobbies and our downtime are supposed to serve as a time of re-creating us, re-engaging us with the God who created us and helping us to be re-made into his image and his likeness.
Are you anxious today? Maybe you’re anxious because you haven’t taken your problems to the Lord. Or, maybe you did take them to the Lord, but you didn’t leave them there. Your anxiety has become a security blanket. Today, you need to give it to Jesus and then go for a walk without your security blanket. Will it be hard? Yes. Will it be scary? Maybe. But, we must choose to have Christ as our security and not our anxieties.
Cast your burdens on to him. He cares for you.
