Fear can be a response to a real situation. It can spring from past occurrences such as being chased by a large dog when a child. Fear of large dogs can result, even though you’re not a child anymore because there is a perceived danger from dogs.
Anxiety is trickier. It is pervasive and intangible. A sense of helplessness ensues. You feel unable to deal with it because it’s like a ghost that cannot be defined. Anxiety nags and suffocates. Anxiety will strip me bare and leave me paralyzed if I allow it to take hold in me.
Here are three simple truths that may help:
Truth #1: GOD loves me and guess what? He LIKES me, too. My identity is in His son, Jesus. I am a creation of the One He sent to redeem me. His love is not ambiguous; it’s not wimpy. This love is sturdy, indomitable, which means impossible to subdue or defeat. There is NOTHING intangible about God’s love.
Romans 8:38, 39 “For I am persuaded (convinced) that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate me from the LOVE OF GOD, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Truth #2: God is interested in my life. He desires to be invited into ALL the rooms of my heart home. Do I divide my daily life into compartments? Like my marriage, children, job, family, church, social? Do I decide where God is invited in? He wants to be present in ALL of them. After all, Psalm 139:18 states that God scheduled every single day of my life before I began to breathe. He knows, first hand, the challenges of every day – He’s the Master of them all. No nagging anxiety can torture me when the majestic Lord of all my days is present. Anxiety becomes powerless in His presence.
Psalm 16:8, “I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With Him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”
Truth #3: God is a verb. Someone wrote a book by that title, but I so believe it. What that means to me is that our God is not a static being – sitting on a throne, lightning bolts in His hands and a big book on His lap. No, our God is the explosive creative force in the universe. He calls worlds into being and transforms lives.
“He stretches out the north over empty space and hangs the earth on nothing.” Job 26:7
“…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature – old things passed away, all things have become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17
God is able to invade the murky circumstances of my life and there can be a new beginning. He has the power to CHANGE things…if I let Him.
How? Surrender my anxiety and my plan, be still and listen to His voice, believe His Word and stand firm, Wait (ouch!), rejoice and give thanks (this will change me) and let anxiety bow to His Majesty.
~Vickie Richey
Christ Fellowship member