From anxiety to peace
We are a bundle of anxious people.
Worry, misgivings, concerns and fear easily settle on our hearts and minds like a thick fog, making it impossible to see the path ahead.
Sometimes, anxiety, like all negative emotions, sticks to our thoughts like a heavy, wet blanket, weighing down our spirit.
And when the spirit is weighed down, we lose focus and become ineffective.
Anxiety can persistently nag us to the point where we are distracted from the present, causing us to be bitter, sad and deprived of peace.
Sources
We contract anxiety in our homes, where one little remark from a family member sends us into our closet to nurse our hurts.
We get anxious at our workplace, where an evaluation of our service angers us to the point where we become gloomy and depressed the entire day.
Believe it or not, we even catch anxiety and worry at church during the service, where we are supposed to be at peace as we worship the Lord.
A church member’s anxiety ensued from the little exchange she had with an usher when she refused to take the seat the usher offered her.
The usher, forgetting the rules of etiquette, engaged the member in embarrassing exchanges that so disturbed both of them that they couldn’t make head or tail of the service that Sunday.
Incubators
Thinking about this subject, it occurred to me that human beings are expert incubators. So I researched to find out why and how we incubate issues to our own detriment, and I got this surprising information:
“Human beings are ‘incubators’ of worry because our brains have evolved to automatically generate, nurture and dwell on potential threats and negative future outcomes as a way to ‘prepare’ for them.
“This cognitive habit, often rooted in our need for security, turns the brain into a fertile ground where small, uncertain scenarios are fed and grow into unnecessary and excessive anxiety.”
Underscore the phrase: “where small, uncertain scenarios are fed and grow into unnecessary and excessive anxiety,” for that is the crux of the matter.
It means that by constantly dwelling on issues that we encounter in our daily engagements, we turn our reasoning faculty into a machine that churns out negative thoughts that only hurt us.
Teaching
While we admit that some of the issues that disturb us may be major, many are rather minor. But whether they are major or minor, anxiety and worry do nothing to relieve us.
In his teaching on this subject, the Lord Jesus asked his hearers, “Can anyone of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” No. So why allow anxiety to weaken us?
It was while he was dilating on this point that the Lord made one of his profound statements about God’s kingdom: “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness,” he said.
In other words, situations that make us worried and anxious diminish into insignificance when aligned with God’s ultimate plan for us, which is to get us into his kingdom.
Why be anxious about anything when you are a child of God on your way to heaven?
Why worry about anything when God so loves you?
Feeling down
One day, I returned from church feeling down and anxious over issues that emanated from the leaders’ meeting.
Before long, I had turned my reasoning capacity into a huge incubator.
Analysing what ensued at the meeting, the incident became a tornado.
The disputes were only a storm in a teacup, insignificant and easy to overlook, but by tossing them over and over in my fertile mind, the matter became a tsunami.
I had forgotten one of my favourite Bible texts: “A prudent man overlooks an insult” (Proverbs 12:16).
So instead of overlooking the insinuations, I nurtured them into a cyclone!
Then the Holy Spirit, our Comforter and Advocate, who is always at hand to help us, dropped another favourite text into my heart that calmed me down considerably:
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6–7).
Quickly, I knew what to do.
I turned my anxiety into prayer and entrusted the situation I was battling with into thanksgiving and petitions for those who caused my anxiety.
Just then, Peter’s counsel also dropped: “Cast all your anxiety on (the Lord) because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).
As I did just that, gradually, peace began to surge into my spirit.
It was the peace of God, which the scripture says “passes all understanding.”
Such peace may not necessarily guarantee the absence of trouble or hurts, but it penetrates through them to rest our troubled minds in the bosom of the Lord.
The writer is a publisher, author, writer-trainer and CEO of Step Publishers.
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