You and I are born into a world of pleasure and pain. Life with God does not always remove us from pain or free us to always experience pleasure. We are living in a broken world. Sin has created pain, sorrow, anxiety, and a host of other difficulties. Difficult circumstances in life create responses, and how we respond to circumstances is significant. Everyone has faith, the question is where is your faith centered? Without Christ one relies on a horizontal faith, faith in things seen, decision making within a thought process absent from trusting God. When a person engineers their own kind of faith it is bound to fail. When human faith fails, people fail, philosophies of men fail, human resources fail, there is nothing left to place one’s faith in any longer. This path leads to a dead end, a lonesome, tragic, and fearful place to exist.
Misplaced faith that is not centered in Christ vertically is cruel because it leads to further hardship and distress. Faith in anything other than Christ places self-reliance in the drivers seat. Faith that starts with God sets aside self-reliance, and relies fully upon God as our guide, our provider and our protector. He guides and provides giving us the assurance, comfort, and hope that our own self-reliance cannot produce with in us. Even if things don’t go as we had planned, God knows and He cares, He truly watches over our lives, this kind of faith draws me away from my own self-reliance and places me in a place of complete trust in Him. As a believer our life by faith should always lead us to trust God. When our faith is placed securely in God our faith grows because He is the very substance of things hoped for, Hebrews 11:1, our faith deepens in a hope that endures. Faith in God even when life’s storms seem to continue to rage, provides a comfort that self-reliance cannot provide, a peace within the storm knowing that God is with us and He will see us through to the end. I have complete assurance by faith that His steadfast love that endures forever is directed fully upon me. God is steadfast in His love toward me. Starting with that thought I am energized in my faith in His steadfast love.
Let’s glean a few thoughts out of Psalm 107. I encourage you to read the entire Psalm, study the narrative, place yourself in the narrative and see how this Psalm can strengthen your faith.
Note how the writer begins his thoughts, with thanksgiving to the Lord. He then rehearses one of God’s most enduring and reassuring attributes, “his steadfast love”. Here in the beginning of this Psalm I would like for you to anchor yourself with thoughts about God’s steadfast love. God is steadfast, as in loyal and unfailing toward His covenant people. God is loving, and is love 1 John 4, and manifests that love in and through His Son. You may be familiar with Exodus 34:6–7 where God is said to be “merciful and gracious”, “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness”, “keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin”. I once read through the book of Psalm underlining every place that I saw the words steadfast love. It was very encouraging, and I encourage you to do the same, it will certainly energize your faith, and that is what we are trying to do now with this powerful Psalm. Now, what about God’s steadfast love?
God’s steadfast love has “redeemed us from trouble” and the Psalmist encourages “let the redeemed of the LORD say so”. He recounts hardships of God’s people and he reminds us that hardships should drive us to God for help and refuge, not away from God and to our own devices. Are you willing now to affirm that God has redeemed you from trouble and say so? Gods people “cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress”, He led them, and the psalmist encourages them “Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man!” Are you willing now to affirm the many times the Lord has delivered you from distress and thank the LORD for His steadfast love? The answers to these questions are the beginning of overcoming anxiety, worry and fear, of overcoming the hardship of self-reliance. Start first by praying to the Lord and thanking Him for the many times His steadfast love has been manifested and proved throughout your lifetime, “for his wondrous works” in your lifetime.
The wonderful and settling theme running throughout this Psalm is God’s steadfast love. After God’s people are reminded of His steadfast love in verse 1, the Psalmist repeats the significance of this theme five more times, verses 8, 15, 21,31, 43. This psalm is a look back into Israel’s history, recounting God’s steadfast love and faithfulness that delivered them from many instances of extreme stress and hardship. In verses 6,13,19,28 we read, “Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.” And in verse 20 “He sent out his word and healed them and delivered them from their destruction.” We read that the God of steadfast love satisfies, fills, delivers, heals, stills, turns deserts to plenty, and “raises up the needy out of affliction”. Weaved within the grind of life is the blessings of our God’s steadfast love, as well as the directive to be wise and attend to recalling how God’s steadfast love has delivered and will deliver in the future. 43 Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast love of the LORD.
What can the steadfast love of God do for those who struggle with anxiety, worry and fear? Anxiety can manifest itself in many different circumstances in life, a medical issue, lack of sleep, bad diet, aging, fearing the unknown, financial stress, marriage and family issues, stress from work, anxiety over perceived or actual situations.
We might add that it would be wise for you to go to your general practitioner and get a physical, because there may be an underlying factor to your anxiety that you are not aware of. Never be ashamed or afraid to seek your Doctor’s advice, he can help you with an underlying biological or pharmaceutical issue, so make an appointment and get their opinion. They are gifted to care for our bodies and the church is gifted to care for your soul.
Studies show that anxiety and worry adversely affects the circulatory system, heart, glands, and entire nervous system. One medical journal suggests that you can have anxiety and worry yourself to death, but you’ll never have anxiety and worry yourself into a longer life. Anxiety and worry may damage one’s health, cause the object of one’s anxiety and worry to consume their thoughts, disrupt their productivity, negatively affect the way they treat others, and reduce their ability to trust in God.
Things that trouble us can be real and legitimate, job loss, sickness, family and marital issues. Parents sometimes feel helpless with reckless teens, marriages seem to be out of our control, circumstances in general seem to be intimidating and uncontrollable. These may be real circumstances; however, we need to be careful to control our response to these circumstances. There are things we create within our own minds that have no basis for concern. If we default to anxiety and worry, we only exacerbate the issue. A person that stages scenarios within their minds, whose thoughts are centered on what “might happen”, will eventually be consumed by those thoughts. Their anxiety will begin to shape their identity, their actions will tell of their need for control, for attempting to predict circumstances, leading to distrust and fear.
Anxiety and worry can create a hyper-sensitivity to actual problems and perceived problems. One can make a habit of always heightening a circumstance to the point of inordinate anxiousness or even a phobia. A scenario is played out in the mind, what’s going to happen “if”, creates a fearful scenario or negative assumptions. When a legitimate problem arises, loss of job, sickness, a difficulty of some sort, too often the response is, “it’s going to be too much for me to handle, it’s going to be too much for anyone to help me, what is going to happen now!” This is a stronghold that must be demolished 2 Cor 10:3-5. When anxiety and worry is personalized or becomes one’s identity, the mind defaults to playing out circumstances negatively, the unreal becomes real. Sometimes the anxious feel as though it is unique only to them, they can’t understand why others are not so concerned or consumed by circumstances. Those who have habituated themselves to anxiety and worry may think that they have a place of survival and refuge, a measure of some control, security and self-comfort. But any area dominated or occupied by self-imposed control is only temporary.
Life’s circumstances are what God has allowed to take place; however, He is in the circumstance and He is in the solution to the circumstance. What we want to do is lay our thoughts of anxiety, worry and fear up against God’s Word. What does God have to say about each individual concern that I have in life, because He is very concerned, intimately concerned about every point of anxiety, worry and fear that we have. He is our Father; He loves us where we are at. God is not intimidated or angry or standoffish toward us because of our anxiety, worry or fear. As Psalm 107 describes, He hears our cries, He tends to our needs, He loves us in our brokenness, in our circumstances, in every aspect of life. He exposes our weakness so that He can demonstrate His provision, protection, and purpose, and His steadfast love toward us. Matt 6:25-29 Jesus paints the picture of a caring loving Father who provides for the least of his creatures and His creation, all the time and every time, He is in control.
God may be using our discomfort to draw us to Him. Sometimes all that one wants is an outlet, quietness, but that quietness may not come right away, perhaps God is teaching us something about patience. Another outlet that we may desire is to be free from pressure, stress or something that triggers a sense of helplessness or fear. Remember however, God is interested in what we learn from trouble not just deliverance from it. 1 Corinthians 10:13. God is in the problem and God is the solution to the problem. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. His method or way of escape, within temptation may not be evident immediately, He may be testing, trying and tempering you, teaching you about reliance. James 1:2-5.
The Christian who worries may be thinking, “God, I know You mean well by what You say, but I’m not sure You can pull it off.” Christians believe God can break the bonds of sin and Satan, redeem them, save them from hell, make them a new creature, give them eternal life, but just don’t think He can get them through the next couple of days. Anxiety and worry are the focus of concern upon the wrong day—tomorrow, the wrong focus, circumstances, rather than the God of the circumstances Matt 6:34. Mobilizing energies that cannot be released productively, because tomorrow is not here, frustrates and heightens anxiety and worry. To think that God is not concerned about your welfare is to choose to nervously ask, “What shall I eat?” “What shall I drink?” “With what shall I clothe myself?” verses 31–32.
Legitimate concerns in life are ever pressing, when we replace anxiety and worry with a proper manifestation of concern, this is acting biblically. Responding responsibly with concern is healthy and wise. Jesus tells us not to exchange basic life’s needs that God promises to supply for anxiety and worry. Jesus is telling us to train our minds in another direction responsibly, to think more of how our Father is caring for us, rather than being dominated by thinking too much in the wrong direction. Jesus points something out. Don’t act like the gentiles who demonstrate anxiety and worry and toil over life, having no sense of provision or being cared for in life, verses 31, 32. Wise concern and destructive anxiety are two different avenues of response to the same things. Wise concern responds with God’s Word in mind, trusting God with confidence. Anxiety is contemplating the future without God, responding with control and uneasiness.
How do we deal with anxiety so that it does not consume us? Ask yourself what do you think about all the time? Understandably thoughts can creep up on us and suddenly, we are anxious. Thoughts are powerful so we need to be careful to keep them focused Joshua 1:7-9. Instead of worrying about what you cannot control focus on what God can do. Focus on what God has done in the past and meditate on those things. Too often we forget the countless times the Lord has delivered us.
Focusing on God primarily means to turn to God first for help, fill your thoughts with His thoughts, His desires, to take His approach to life for your pattern of response and behavior. People, objects, goals, circumstances, and desires all compete for priority. Any of these can quickly replace God like thoughts about our circumstances. If you don’t actively choose to give Him first thought in every area of your life, those other thoughts will compete with God’s thoughts and will create anxiety, worry and fear. Thoughts that are not held captive are free to roam and do us harm.
A few things can happen with anxiety that are unhealthy. First, looking horizontally for solutions that can take shape in several different ways. Secondly, looking within for solutions. Often the worrier will spend so much time looking around for anyone or anything to help them that they lose sight of God’s solution for their anxiety. Often, they will look within themselves which also creates additional anxiety. It has been my experience that when a person has engaged themselves in horizontal measures, as well as looking with in, when they come up empty the anxiety has only increased not diminished. Stop and ask yourself if this is a habit you have formed, looking around or looking within for solutions to difficulties.
Our Creator God wants His children preoccupied with Him in a vertical relationship, not with the world around them or with themselves. You may be thinking that you have tried to depend on God, you have pleaded with God, but nothing has changed. Remember, we can have faith that the Father hears our prayers, Matt 21:22, Jn 9:31, 1 Jn 5:14. Many of the personal narratives of His people in Scripture proves that God allows seasons in our lives to drive us closer to Him. When we focus horizontally we have no hope, when we focus vertically, we acknowledge God’s Fatherly care for us, and we trust He will aid us eventually in our time of need 1 Cor 10:13. Give up on the horizontal, give up on looking within, but never give up on the Father and His steadfast loving care. He hears and He knows what is best.
As you struggle with anxiety write down the things that are troubling you in a journal. Begin a list. First, by using the put off/put on dynamic of Eph 4:22–24 as a guide toward biblical change. Make a specific list of things you think about that’s creating anxiety and worry, things that need to be put off. Second, refocus the energy of anxiety toward a biblical solution. Make a column next to the first list, this is a list of biblical references you discover that address these difficulties. Carefully study God’s Word to find where it applies to your struggles, record these findings. Remember God’s Word is the agent of change, it renews the mind and changes the heart, not behaviorally, but spiritually first, from the heart level. This then changes us at the behavioral level, as in truth applied to your life. This list is what drives the third column. The third column is the plan or the “put on” column, the actual “how to” in dealing with change. Write down what God would want you to do about your anxiety and worry. Consider Matt. 6:25-32 when you make this list. Put together a plan or task to put on truths you have discovered and strengthen your faith with those truths. In addition, consider 2 Peter 1:5-11, where it gives further reinforcement of supplementing your faith. Consider this promise, “for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.” You want to “practice” and reproduce biblical truths in your life in order to accomplish the goal of pleasing God, Jn 8:28, 29, 1 Cor 10:31, with truth applied to life’s circumstances. Eventually you will find yourself removed farther away from the struggle.
Keep the list simple working on only one thing at a time, don’t concern yourself with the things that seem uncontrollable, look to the obvious things God wants you to do, and then do them. You can list several things you need to work on but don’t overwhelm yourself or you will quit. Move on to the next item on your list if the first one proves difficult to work through, but don’t quit, keep working on it and studying Scriptures, you will be delighted to find out how much God’s Word addresses your concerns. Then keep praying!
Pray, but not just pray, organize your prayer life. Tell the Father daily about your anxiousness and ask Him to help you overcome your anxiety. When Paul was in prison, a highly anxious time in his life, he instructs the church to; Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us …..Col 4:2-4. Prayer is a constant theme in Paul’s stress filled life. His ministry was filled with opportunities to be held captive to the crushing blows of circumstances 2 Cor 11. His advice is written all over the letters to churches and populated with prayers and thanksgiving. Pray in and through your anxiety with thanksgiving, and you will grow in your understanding of how our Father hears our prayers and leads us through prayer to a closer relationship with Him. Focus on praying for others as well, this helps us to think of others condition and not just on our present circumstances. Write them out, they will encourage you and others later. Additionally, seek counsel, find an accountability partner, allow them to help you and hold you accountable as you study and share your findings.
Getting to the heart of anxiety in Matt 6:25–34, Jesus addresses the subject of anxiety with his disciples. “Do not be anxious about your life”, about provision, food and clothing. The futility of anxiety/worry does not alter anything, even what is going to happen tomorrow. Jesus places their focus upon our heavenly Father. He then focuses there attention on what really to seek after, kingdom purposes, “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness”, and when this is the focus, “all these things will be added to you” vs33. The energy of anxiety and worry is refocused upon God’s provision, protection, and purpose. All of Matt 6 is dealing with the “now” of living, not the anxiety of what might become of the future. Jesus is teaching us to live within the context of the present, leaving the next moment, the next hour, the next day to the Father’s care. Not ours, but His provision, protection, and purpose. This is where we must all live, with our daily needs being met by the Father, Matt 6:11. Have faith in God’s steadfast love it will never fail you!