Dealing with Anxiety God's Way

Philippians 4:4-9
December 17, 2006
All Saints Anglican Church

When I was growing up, our family used to visit Grandpa and Grandma Walker at their farm in Spencer West Virginia. The farm was 8 miles from the nearest black top road and sometimes when it came time to go home, and it had been raining, the road was so slick and muddy we couldn’t make it up the first hill to go back home. Try as we might, the tires just couldn’t get enough traction and we spun and spun to no avail. Grandpa used to walk down to the barn and get the tractor, hook up a chain to the front of our car and pull us up that slick hill. After that we seemed to be able to get along home. But without the power assist from the tractor, we would have still been there!

Many of us find ourselves in similar circumstances mentally: consumed with anxiety about the future. We worry about our children, worry about our finances, worry about our marriages – we’re stuck in the slick mud and we don’t seem to be able to extricate ourselves. Yet Jesus said that if we would trust Him, and seek first the Kingdom of God we would have peace and all the things we worry about would be added to us ( Mt. 6:33). Why do we fail to enter into the peace that comes with trusting God?

First let’s ask another question: What positive value does my worry, anxiety and fear serve? … Positive value? This seems a nonsensical question. Surely we would immediately respond by saying that there is no positive value in my worry and fear. But wait. Let’s also start with the premise that we wouldn’t do this unless it gave us some perceived sense of value. “Perceived” is the important word here. I would submit to you that anxious worry gives us a (false) perception that we are doing something about a problem.

To illustrate this, I’m thinking of another drive our family took out to Mulberry Ridge in January of 1968. We got stuck up to the axles in mud. The more Dad tromped on the gas, the more the wheels spun and dug us deeper into the mud. We finally had to get out and walk the rest of the way. Later, we came back and put rock under the wheels to increase traction, and finally got out of the mire.

If we could compare this situation to our body and brain in anxiety - the wheels (your body) quickly report that they’re stuck and can’t get out. The engine (your brain) responds by speeding up and putting out more power to the wheels. The wheels spin and spin, but are still stuck. Now the brain thinks it is doing its job quite well, but the body is screaming out, “No, No! We’re burning up back here! Stop!” This is a picture of someone stuck in chronic anxiety, constantly stimulated by adrenaline, holding on to the illusion that speeding up will solve the problem, but threatening to burn out through the effects of stress on the body.

Our worry gives us a perception that we’re doing something about being stuck, but this is a cruel illusion and intuitively we know it. We alternately condemn ourselves for pursuing this illusion, but feel compelled to hang on to it out of concern for what will happen if we let go.

Here is a key to understanding this dilemma: We are absolutely convinced that something terrible, something life-threatening is about to happen and it is up to us to fend it off. Our bodies serve our brains faithfully and so carry out physical action in accordance with an impending disaster. The digestion shuts down, blood is pumped to the extremities. The heart beats faster and the respiration speeds up. We are fully engaged in the classic fight or flight response, ready to take up the challenge. The only problem is that the disaster has not actually taken place and our bodily preparations are an exercise in futility. Just as Mark Twain said, “the Worst Things in my life never happen…”

We need to deal with Anxiety God’s Way to keep this type of stressing from slowly killing us.

Here then is the first important point in dealing with Anxiety God’s way: Rejoice in the Lord. (Teach the chorus.)

Now remember who is saying this. It’s Paul; the same Paul who was beaten and thrown into jail along with Silas in Philippi (not WV) for preaching the Gospel and upsetting the people. The same Paul who was singing God’s praise at midnight when an earthquake suddenly destroyed the jail they were in. This is a guy who knew how to praise God in the tough places (cf. Acts 16:25). Paul and Silas were rejoicing in the Lord, not in their circumstances. They were rejoicing in God’s character, power and presence, not in their circumstances. They were rejoicing that they had been found worthy to suffer for the sake of the Gospel, not fretting over their circumstances. And as a result, they saw the deliverance of God in a dramatic way. Although they were stuck in a big way, they didn’t let there circumstances determine their response, or alter their faith in God. They rejoiced in the Lord.

The second point in dealing with Anxiety is to Pray. Often, we hear people say, “the only thing we can do now is pray” – as if this is a desperate last-ditch effort. To the contrary, prayer is the first and best thing we can do.

Prayer is talking to Someone who has the power to do something about our problem! God is able to do “exceedingly abundantly above all that we think or imagine” (Eph 3:20). Therefore, giving the problem over to Him is like kicking the problem upstairs; He’ll definitely do Something about it! But this means that we will have to make an adjustment in our thinking; we will have to give up being Junior God of the Universe!

You see, we often behave as if God had died recently, leaving us in charge! And because we know that our resources are pathetically limited, we also know we are in deep trouble. Therefore, Anxiety is a “reasonable” response to our dilemma! If I worry enough, I can somehow fend off the train wreck waiting to happen. But if you will check the obituaries in your local newspaper, you’ll quickly see that God’s name is not there - nor is it ever likely to appear. And since God is alive and much bigger and more powerful than I, He knows what to do and how to accomplish it. He doesn’t need my help!

Worry and anxiety masquerade as Christian Responsibility. But this “responsibility” is based on the false assumption that I am in charge of the Universe and that I must do something about the impending disaster. Because God is alive and in charge of all things, I am now free to stop my own ineffective worry. I must take the time to listen and heed what He plans for me, but I am now free of the overwhelming responsibility of the world’s problems. So think of prayer as the freedom to be “irresponsible” by entrusting yourself and your circumstances over to God.

Pondering, or changing your thoughts, is the next important point. We are to think on things that are good, true pure lovely worthy of praise and excellent, not lament how terrible our situation is. In the lingo of counseling and psychotherapy, we call this cognitive restructuring: Restructuring your thoughts to line up with the way things really are, not according to the false, distorted lies the Devil whispers to us. Instead of “Awfulizing” – “This is bad, this is terrible, this is awful, I’m going to die” – we need to practice telling ourselves the things that are true about God and ourselves, such as God is trustworthy and powerful. He is able to do help in time of need, if we only trust Him. The children of Israel did this when they recounted all the many mighty deeds God had done for them in bringing them out of Egypt, across the Red Sea and into the Promised Land. They were restructuring naturally negative thoughts into a rehearsal of God’s goodness and power, dwelling on the good, the true, beautiful, the excellent and the praiseworthy. Thus their confidence in God was built up.


Then finally, we are to Practice what we have learned. Paul exhorts his readers to follow him. Remember he could assert this because he had demonstrated the ability to do it in prison while bleeding and full of pain. He tells the Philippians to model themselves on him and practice what they have seen him do. And what he did was to practice his faith by Rejoicing, Pray and Pondering. He also practiced his faith by being active and doing things. In a word, he took Action.

Action is the antidote to Anxiety. But it must be effective action, not the illusory action of simply speeding up our thoughts with no effect. To go back to our car in the mud for a moment, if we want to get unstuck, we have do something that will actually accomplish a result. We have to go get the tractor and get pulled out, or we have to put something under the wheels to increase traction so that we can get out of the mud. Simply speeding up the wheels will not work, however well-intentioned. To translate this to our physical existence, somehow we must find an activity that both brain and body will accept as Action in order to reduce our anxiety. Happily, efficacious Action is both simple and easily accomplished.

Of course Prayer is Action because you are giving the problems to Someone who can do something about the problem. But another very simple Action is to write things down on a piece of paper. Especially late at night, or when we are tossing and turning in our beds, worrying about something, it is very helpful to actually get up out of bed and write down the things that worry us. Then we sketch out possible courses of action we think might fix the problems. When everything is laid out on paper, our brains will accept the notion that we have done something and we can go on to the business of falling asleep. We have made a tentative plan and written it down. This writing is the difference between planning and anxious worry. A plan can be written down, anxious worry cannot.

Beyond writing things down, it is necessary to actually do something; make arrangements to pay an outstanding bill, talk to someone you’ve been at odds with, complete a project you’ve been putting off. Do something that will relieve you of the need to worry.

Time doesn’t permit an exhaustive treatment of this topic, but I’ll just add one thought to tie our discussion in to Advent. Paul says not to worry; the Lord is at hand. During Advent, we think about both the first and second comings of our Lord. If we think on the latter too much, we can easily become distressed about the state of the world and what terrible thing will happen next.

Brothers and Sisters be anxious for nothing, but pray with thanksgiving in your hearts. Let your requests be made known to God – and His peace, the Peace that surpasses all understanding will guard your heart and your mind in our Lord Christ Jesus. Amen.