the antidote to worry

image source: freeimages.com/John Nyberg

There are just so many things to worry about in this life. We could fill a whole day with a multitude of anxious thoughts concerning ourselves, our loved ones, our plans, careers, relationships, the world. In fact, if we look around, it often seems that there is more going wrong with the world than going right. In addition to what's going on 'out there', we have our own issues to contend with: past failures, lost dreams and hopes, experiences that seemed to have crushed us and trained us into believing that we might as well give up. We can become stuck amidst this stream of negative thoughts, trapped between the failures of the past and the fears for the future.
When we are overrun with negative, worrisome thoughts, it can be easy to get stuck. To feel like passengers in our own minds as the stream of concerns run through like a freight train, weighted by our experiences, by 'proofs' that things could and will go terribly, terribly wrong.

But there is an antidote.

God has not created us to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. Not even the weight of our own lives; He has provided a solution regarding those things which concern us. In Philippians 4:6 and 7 we find an invitation:

'Be anxious for nothing, but in everything buy prayer and supplication, 
with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 
and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.'

Within this well-known passage, we are offered the correct application for our anxieties: Prayer. When we are worried, it is a sign; a sign that we are carrying a burden that we ought not to be carrying. God knows that worrying about things that are outside of our control is not good for us. It is not His design for His creatures to carry the weight of the world; to try and plan their futures and keep all the plates in the air by their own strength. Some things are just outside of our control and no matter how much we churn over them, we cannot come up with answers.

When we are overrun with worry, we are invited to hand over our concerns to God through prayer. We are not casting them to the great void and hoping for the best. We are handing the problems over to a Being, asking Him to work on them for us. He has promised to equip us with strength and ability for every task. He has promised solutions, deliverance and His presence. When we pray, we invite him into the circumstance and secure His solutions. It is passing the problem from our hands into His.

Prayer also works an act of purging our minds of those thoughts that do not belong there. As we release the thought and the control to God, we reestablish our minds; we detox the negative, fearful churning thoughts and are left with a blank slate. God has promised that when we pass our concerns to Him, he will give us His peace.

In the verse above, peace is defined as the following:

• a state of tranquility; exemption from the rage and havoc of war (remember, those things that concern us are not our battle to fight: God has promised to go ahead of us)
• security, safety, prosperity
• the tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ and so fearing nothing from God and content with its earthly lot of whatever sort it is

In addition to this, the word guard is likened to a military guard, which works to prevent hostile invasion or to keep the inhabitants of a besieged city from flight. It is a protection, a guarding, a keeping, a watching. When we pray, we release supernatural power; peace guards us but it is our job to stay in that peace. We need to be careful not to rehash a thought that we have released to God in prayer. Reject it; it has been committed to God's care and you can be assured that He will has taken responsibility for it.

This is God's design for his creation; communication with him. Re-aligning ourselves into His care and reminding ourselves that we are not meant to figure this life out by ourselves. He wants to show us the way and He wants to help us in our lives.

This is the fourth installment on a series of fear that I will be doing on this blog. Check back in the coming days for more on fear and how to take back control of a worried, fretting mind.

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