^^Anxiety Face^^
He deals with it, I deal with it, 2/3 of our congregation deals with it if the nervous chuckles are any indication (p.s. they are)
He's been pointing us to the Word of God which addresses (often) fear and anxiety. This alone makes me feel better because God isn't saying, "pull yourself up by your bootstraps and deal with it!" This says to me, "anxiety and fear are real and they're going to be part of your life in some way. Here is the way I've made your brain, and within its structure are ways to combat and use anxiety."
I mean, if Jesus crying out and sweating droplets like blood in the Garden of Gethsemane wasn't a picture of anxiety over facing something unthinkable, then I don't know what is.
It speaks to me that Jesus knows fear. He knows dread. And He faced it, so I can, too. But how?
Pastor Steve mentioned some things we can do when faced with the anxiety monster in his last sermon. It connected with a place in my mind that convinces me that I can't move within fear; that I have to stay still and wait for it to pass before I can live again. He's been speaking on anxiety for a few weeks, so I'd check out the podcasts on all of the other sermons, too.
Everyone experiences anxiety, but some people are prone to let it take over.
That'd be me.
When you are an anxious person, every new piece of information you get gets filtered through anxiety. Even the good stuff, like blood work that comes back normal. Well, obviously they're just missing something and I'm dying and no one is catching it in time. Or when you get back more money than you expected on your tax return. Well, obviously we screwed up filing it and they'll be knocking at our door to take all we have ANY MINUTE!!!!
People that are prone to fear become conditioned to assume that their fears are real things that will happen and they become perpetually disappointed (by things that haven't even/probably won't happen) which means that they never let themselves become hopeful. Sound familiar? We all do this to varying degrees, but for some of us, it shapes who we are and how we see life.
Then the Bible is all, "fear not..." Like...a lot of times. And I'm all, "BUT HOWWWWWWWWW-UHHHHHHH?"
Me, last week.
Anxiety binds us up; I think we can all agree on that, right? A little bit of anxiety or a lot of anxiety, it doesn't matter, we need to be loosed from it's grip.
We have to kill it.
That's right, I said kill it.
If we don't take care of it fully, every day, we treat it sort of like a pet on a leash.
GAHHHHHH, PRESSSSHHHHHH
We try to control it just enough to look normal and function in society, but before you know it, you look down, the end of the leash is chewed off and this is COMIN' ATCHA FACE!
AHHHHH, HELP ME TOM CRUISE!
Pastor Steve proposed another idea, which has nothing to do with Mr. Cruise:
Chop its dang head off with a sword. Not an actual dog people, simmer down, but your anxiety's head. Like this...
Ummmmmm, or something....
But this looks fun, I'M IN!
I want to add here that it's not a one and done type of thing. You don't kill anxiety and never feel it again. It's a daily process, but each time you kill it, it doesn't get weaker, YOU get stronger. Smarter. More confident in the face of it.
He talked about a few ways we can do this. (Go read Philippians 4 first, it's all in there).
PRAY
Obvious? Yes.
Crucial? Yes.
But he said something about prayer that stuck with me and I get. In prayer, don't concentrate on your anxiety or fear or what's causing it. Prayer is not JUST telling God how you feel. Did you hear that????
Prayer is not JUST telling God how you feel.
We must worship, give thanks, rejoice, IN THE MIDST of making our requests known. When it comes to communicating with God, He already knows what we are going to say, what will happen in our tomorrows, what little and big things will happen, how our fear may manifest, what we'll do about it, etc.
Prayer equals trust,
so worry equals mistrust.
Worry could also mean that I believe what He says about taking care of me, but I don't feel it so it isn't real to me. Feelings shouldn't have to confirm what God has already said so when those feelings take over, something is out of balance.
True prayer is telling God how we feel and acknowledging that HE IS THE LORD OVER how we feel. What happens when you can't even trust yourself to pray? Pastor Steve suggested praying the psalms out loud. I love that. I go to that often.
THINK ABOUT THESE THINGS
Me: I'm so anxious about this thing. Can you help me?
Friend: OH, I know what to do.
Me: OHMYGOODNESS, are you serious? What?
Friend: Just don't worry.
Friend slides on some shades and exits like David Caruso
#sowise #socool
You can't beat worrying by NOT worrying, or else we'd all be free of anxiety! Instead, we can replace the worry with truth. People who study the way our brains work (just people, ok? Trust me, statistics are *waves hands wildly* somewhere...) have proven that our thinking habits forge pathways through out mind and each time we habitually think a certain way, we wear down a path. Then guess what happens? That worn down path is the easiest to traverse. So we take it again. And again. And again. And it gets more worn and the brambles and branches and weeds grow around it, but not on it and it gets too hard to leave that path.
But guess what???? (And this completely changed my life when Pastor Steve first brought it up earlier this year). We can get out our axes and forge a new path. It's hard work and not the path of least resistance, but it is so worth it. It's freedom. IT'S FREEDOM! Did I mention it's hard work?
Even when briars hold us still and we can barely move our axe an inch, we are freer there than on that well-worn path of anxiety. An inch a day in the wilderness is better than 5 miles a day on that path.
PRACTICE THESE THINGS
In Philippians 4:8, we are told that whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, praise worthy, to think about these things. Take what you learn from thinking about them and PRACTICE living them out.
"practice," in the Strong's dictionary:
to perform repeatedly or habitually; to exercise, to be busy with, carry on
Anxiety seeks to paralyze us, so when we practice these things, our thoughts become our axes. When we think about truth, honor, justice, and praise-worthy things repeatedly, when they become our habits, each thought is the swing of the axe. Each swing takes us further away from the path that fear has forged. And we have to wake up every single day and grab that axe and get to work.
With our axes wielded, and our hearts pumping with purpose, fear is obliterated.
As opposed to walking the well-worn path, heart pumping with fear, as WE are obliterated.
Fear roots you to one place; root yourself in God (who is love) and move! Fear doesn't move unless you carry it.
ROOTED:
to cause to strike root, to strengthen with roots, to render firm,
to establish, cause a person to be thoroughly grounded
GROUNDED:
something put down, lay the foundation (of a building);
the foundations, beginnings (of institution or system of truth)l;
settle, to make stable, establish
LOVE:
agape; love feast; good will; benevolence;
to welcome; to be well pleased; affection; charity
I want to end with some good advice from Pastor Steve. He said instead of saying, "I'm just an anxious person," say, "I have a life long sword fight with anxiety and I'm killing it more than it's killing me." I mean COME ON!!! How does THAT make ya feel?
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