Cut the Root of Anxiety with the Sword of God
I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done (Psalm 118:17 NIV).
Once you make progress in putting an “X” through your anxiety, you’ll notice that you’re no longer telling yourself the same old narrative.
What narrative is that? The one where anxiety is just a part of who you are. That it’s always been there and that you’ve just had to learn to live with it because it’s too powerful to defeat.
No longer. Now, you’ll begin to tell a different story. As you uproot your anxiety, look to God who has your back, learn to trust in Jesus, embrace humility, and breathe deeply, you’ll find that the words you say no longer are tinged with fear and resignation. You’ll have hope and the early stages of a peace that surpasses all understanding.
Like the psalmist, you’ll begin to say, “I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done.”
Don’t be surprised if when you start speaking differently, people begin to listen. In a culture familiar with anxiety, fear, depression, and darkness, when you start embracing your new narrative and living a life of peace and light, you’ll stand out. People will wonder what makes you so different and what’s changed in your life.
That’s an amazing place to be, because you don’t have to make up an answer or act like the hero. Instead, you can just simply point back to Jesus, the Good Shepherd and Giant Slayer. It’s His work in you, and His work through you, and because of that, He deserves all the praise and glory.
Flipping the Script
It’s one of my favorite things whenever my wife Shelley and I and our team have the privilege to gather the collegiate generation for the name and renown of Jesus. Passion has been a central part of our calling for over two decades, and every time we gather, Jesus meets us and shifts things in a glorious way.
There was one conference a few years ago where I felt the Lord urging me to share a message around this idea of “it’s time to turn the page.” I asked our production team to fabricate what might be the largest prop book ever used in a sermon illustration, and three times throughout the message, I had our team “turn the page.”
From defeat to victory.
From less of me to more of Jesus.
From living in fear to living a life that roars the name, love, strength, and joy of Jesus.
As we come down to the finishing touches on our work of putting an “X” through anxiety, I can’t help but think of that illustration for you and for me. It’s our time to flip the script, or to turn the page.
Anxiety may have been a giant in our story, but it’s time to turn the page. Fear may have had a strong grip in our hearts before, but it’s time to flip the script. Death and defeat may have been on our tongues before, but through Jesus it’s time for a new narrative of life and victory.
I love how Paul gives us such a clear picture of this in Romans 8:15 (ESV). He writes:
For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
You’re living in a new story. You are no longer a slave to fear and anxiety because you have received the Spirit of sonship or daughter-ship, “the Spirit of adoption.” You are a part of the family of the King of kings, loved and cherished by Him, adopted into all strength, beauty, hope, and peace. You are His, and in His presence, your giants must fall or flee.
As you speak that new narrative, you’ll begin to see changes in your walk with God, starting with how you daily interact with and depend on Him.
Daily Dependency
When we are living with Jesus in view and loving Him with our heart, mind, and soul, we have the strength and provision we need to face any hurdle that might come our way.
Proverbs 31 describes a godly woman, and one of the many characteristics named of this woman is that “she laughs at the days to come.” She is not shaken with fear or anxiety at what lies ahead because she knows the One who rules over every day and who will provide her with all that she needs.
You too can live a life that is characterized by a rich and daily sense of joy and freedom. How? By living in view of God’s mercies and His provision, both of which He specifically sets out for you, each and every day. We’ll take a look at each in turn.
First, God invites us to live in view of daily mercies. The book of Lamentations is a small text that often feels wedged between Jeremiah and Ezekiel. It’s only five chapters long, but it holds many powerful truths. Halfway through the book, we come across a transformative text in Lamentations 3:22-24:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him” (NIV).
His compassion never fails. In other versions of Scripture, it says, “his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning” (ESV).
How would your perspective shift if you woke up each morning and your first thought was, “I have new mercies for today”? And not just new mercies, but the specifically tailored-for-today mercies.
So that business meeting you have today? Specific mercies for that. That hard conversation you’ll get into later this afternoon? Mercies. That traffic jam you’ll sit in on the way home from work? (I’m from Atlanta so I’ve got to mention the traffic, right?) There are even mercies for the Atlanta traffic.
You have daily mercies handcrafted for every hurdle and hardship you will face today. But there’s more.
You don’t only have daily mercies; you have daily provision as well. That’s why Jesus instructed His disciples that when they pray, they should include the line, “Give us today our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11 NIV).
You may not say those exact words every time you pray to God, but you can see what He’s saying, right? God has daily provision set aside for you. He’s not saying that God is going to daily give you a loaf of bread, although some of us wouldn’t turn down that gift. He’s saying God will give you nourishment. Supplies for your soul that will strengthen and aid you as you go hour to hour.
Daily mercies and daily bread. Compassion and contentment. You have all that you need, today, to start speaking and living out your new narrative. But the best news of all is you’re not the one telling the story.
God’s Got the Pen
Even in your darkest moments, when you were at the bottom of the pit of anxiety, God still knew you. He still loved you. You were not off His radar or out of His sight. How do I know that? Because Psalm 139:7-12 says that even when I’m hidden in darkness, the darkness is not dark to God.
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you (NIV).
He knows who you are and where you are. He knows this because that same Psalm goes on to say that “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Psalm 139:16 NIV).
He wrote those days, not you. He’s got the pen, not you. What a joyful revelation that you and I aren’t the authors of our own stories. We get another glimpse of this in Hebrews 12:2 where we’re encouraged to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.
Jesus is the author of your story. As you daily follow Him, you can trust He is writing a new and beautiful narrative, one where peace flourishes and the giant of anxiety falls once and for all.
Breaking Free
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Peter 1:3 NIV)
