Anxiety Solutions for Christians
Christian Therapy
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Christians have so much to worry about that they should be almost as stressed out as my cat. If you have read the previous page, you will know that it embraces a startling topic: the power of doing nothing. You will also know that the page you have now commenced is about ensuring that this nothingness is not cold and empty. That would leave room for anxiety to grow – or even something more disconcerting. This page is about filling that nothingness with warmth and contentment by letting God fill it with himself. First, however, we must explore something that, if not understood, could derail everything.
In many Christian circles today there is an undue emphasis on feelings. Every day, I hear from casualities of this spiritually unhealthy practice. From all over the world, distressed people keep writing to me, needlessly worried about their relationship with God. Not surprisingly, their e-mails are filled with the word feel. Their own words highlight the heart of their problem. Spiritual things are not physical, but neither are they emotional. We all understand the first part of that truth, but many of us are highly confused about the second. We know how ridiculous it would be to try using a ruler to measure spiritual growth, or a heart monitor to detect spiritual activity. Using feelings as a spiritual indicator is equally inappropriate. In fact, exalting feelings to that position is downright dangerous. It is as ungodly as using tarot cards, or some other occult practice, for spiritual guidance. Why? Because we are called to live by faith, not by feelings or circumstances. God and his Word never change. Feelings, on the other hand, are as fickle as the wind. The enemy of our souls – the deceiver – cannot mess with God’s truth, but he readily messes with our feelings. God allows it, because he expects us to live by faith. Feelings toss us around like a boat in a storm, but faith keeps us anchored to God, preventing us from drifting onto rocks. Forget about feeling God’s presence, or feeling peace, or feeling forgiven, or feeling loved, or feeling anything else. Let go of all of that. It has nothing to do with spiritual reality. Instead, honor God by resting in the certainty that no matter how you feel – numb, scared, confused, in physical or emotional pain, or whatever – God is with you. Emotions may rage within, keeping you from feeling peace. Nevertheless, you have peace with God. You are no longer God’s enemy, but his friend, because of the spiritual miracle Christ worked by his death and resurrection. That means that no matter how bizarre, or even terrifying, your circumstances, God is with you, and he is all you need. Regardless of how much everything within and without screams the opposite, God remains warm, good, patient, kind, gentle, loving, understanding, compassionate and generous. Our emotions and sensibilities are as changeable as the weather, but God remains steadfast and faithful. No matter what the weather is outside, the God who has made your body his home (Scriptures) remains in you, in all his power and wonder. On cold, dreary days, the God enthroned in you is just as warm, powerful, loving, and delightful, as on exquisite, sunny days. The Christian life is not about feeling, nor about doing, but about being. It is because there is so much more to life than our senses can detect, that Paul could say such things as:
Philippians 4:12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. (NIV)
Romans 8:35, 38-39 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from God’s love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Philippians 1:22-24 But if I live on in the flesh, this will bring fruit from my work; yet I don’t know what I will choose. But I am hard pressed between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Yet to remain in the flesh is more needful for your sake.
2 Corinthians 12:10 . . . I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, and in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong. Let’s not confuse emotions with the Spirt; the temporal with the eternal; the superficial with the important. Peter was walking on the water, and doing fine – until distracted by the wind and waves. That’s like us in our walk with God. Emotions and circumstances are superficial. The substance is Christ. Even if, like Peter, you momentarily forget Jesus and begin to sink, your Lord is still there to grab you and keep you safe (Matthew 14:29-31). Keep your eyes on him, however, and astonishing things can happen. Because you are human, you have feelings. At the same time, because you are a child of God, you are greater than your feelings. Just as our physical bodies are part of God’s creation, so are emotions. It is wrong to despise either of them, but that does not mean they always function perfectly, nor that we can rely on either of them for spiritual guidance. Since “. . . the things of God’s Spirit . . . are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14, emphasis mine) do not expect them to be emotionally discerned. Times when we cannot sense God with our emotions should surprise us no more than when we cannot detect him with our physical senses. Having feelings is fine; being bullied by them is not. Your feelings do not define you, nor limit you. Just as money is not spiritual currency, neither are feelings.
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They don’t have to believed, obeyed, or even noticed. ” – Grantley Morris
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Every one of Jesus’ disciples – all those faithful followers, who meant so much to him – deserted him when he most needed their comfort and support. Was he shocked? He expected it (Mark 14:27). He even expected one of them to betray him; turning him over to his enemies. Likewise, you can expect to be deserted and even betrayed by your feelings when you seem to most need them. Nevertheless, as your Leader remained steadfastly faithful to God despite all the abandonment, loneliness and anguish, so can you. In fact, it was not when Jesus was on the mount of transfiguration (Matthew 17:2-3), nor when multiplied thousands were flocking to hear his every word, but during this devastating time of apparent failure that he most glorified God. Likewise you, his follower, can glorify God the most when every warm fuzzy and feeling that God is with you flees. We look with envy a people enjoying spiritual highs and think, “That’s just what I need to build my faith,” when what we really mean is, “That’s just what I want to avoid the need for faith.” When we feel so very close to God and everything is going well, we call it a mountaintop experience. During such times people are given insight into everyday spiritual reality. The clouds lift a little and they are allowed to a tiny glimpse of things as they really are. Other times the clouds return. When this happens, nothing has changed, except how much of spiritual reality we are allowed to see. That’s the very time when real faith begins; the time when heaven gets interested because we finally get a chance to do something praiseworthy.
2 Corinthians 5:7 . . . we walk by faith, not by sight.
2 Corinthians 4:18 . . . we don’t look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Romans 8:24-25 . . . For we were saved in hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. . . . No matter how spectacular, having mountaintop experiences is like being a trainee pilot who has experienced perfect take-offs and landings but never with you at the controls. Having warm fuzzies abandon you, however, is like being finally being entrusted with the controls. That’s when heaven gets ready to applaud you. No matter how divinely blessed you are, how Spirit-filled, how great you are in heaven’s eyes and how spiritually powerful you become, you will either have times when you are assaulted by doubts, fears and worries, or you are fake. Signs and feelings are not the savior they seem. Warm, gooey feelings and miraculous signs are cotton candy that entice spiritual infants but all too quickly become an enemy of spiritual health. To grow up spiritually one must be weaned off signs and feelings, and learn to live by raw faith, no matter how tough things get. God and feelings are opposites. God is rock solid; feelings are fickle. God is eternal; feelings are fleeting. To expect feelings to consistently line up with spiritual reality is demanding far too much from them. You might as well expect them to tell you the winning lottery number. To backslide from living by faith that the blood of Jesus cleanses you from all sin, to looking to feelings to confirm God accepts you, is to gamble away your eternity. Feelings are a part of your earthly existence, but when it comes to spiritual discernment, keep devaluing them until they mean nothing to you. Don’t fear or run from unpleasant feelings, nor become enslaved to nice ones. Neither try to eradicate feeling. Simply dethrone them. Let God, not feelings, be your God. This has nothing to do with escapism, and everything to do with embracing spiritual reality. Just as faith takes you way beyond what you see, it soars way beyond what you feel. To live by faith is to be freed from earthly restraints. It takes you into spiritual reality; an entirely different dimension that is not limited by what you see or feel. If you have grasped this, you are ready for the rest of the webpage.
A huge driver of anxiety is the mistaken notion – or even fear – that so much depends upon us – our abilities, our faith, our walk with God, our Bible knowledge, our spiritual power, and so on. But what if life with God is much easier than that? Those who have not yet discovered Jesus might be forced to treat life as a do-it-yourself project. When we yield to Jesus, however, we need never again revert to that lonely, bungling existence. Through Christ, you have Almighty God in your life. You can take it easy and let God be God. That takes all the pressure off you. Furthermore, it glorifies him and lets him do what he longs to do – take care of you. Is faith like a worried, frustrated child, sweating over trying to fix her bike, when she doesn’t have a clue what to do, nor the physical strength? Or is faith like leaving the bike with Daddy, and happily running off to play, knowing that Daddy can do anything and that nothing brings him greater joy than helping his children? Some see faith and prayer as battling to get God’s attention, or trying to talk him into doing what we want, or struggling to pry a blessing out of a tight-fisted God, or sweating over having to help him solve our problems by dreaming up solutions for him to implement because he would never have thought of them himself. But are faith and prayer like snuggling into God and drifting into a contented sleep, knowing that he will take care of everything? You might see yourself as an all-consuming, never-ending problem, but life begins beyond the mirror. Look up and see your magnificent God, the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent solution to your every problem. Let concerns about your every inadequacy end in the endlessness of his adequacy. Incompetence dissolves in the presence of omnipotence.
 Jesus slept in a boat tossed around by a ferocious storm that terrified even experienced fishermen. To fall into an instant, faith-filled sleep is ridiculously unrealistic. What any of us can do, however, is slide our eyes off the mirror and look up. “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things,” says Colossians 3:2. This change of focus can bring almost instant relief, but when gripped by fear and in panic mode, it’s easier said than done. Many different things can get our mind off petty earthly matters, that seem to loom so terrifyingly large, and on to the infinite God of peace for whom nothing is a problem. One possibility is to meditate on the Lord’s prayer (Matthew 6:9-13). Being prayer, it is not just thinking of God, but connecting with him. It is not doing, however, but resting. It is not in the slightest about struggling to control your thoughts or forcing yourself to believe. It is simply finding new calm by reassuring yourself that you have every reason for resting in God. The goal is not fervent prayer but closer to these Scriptures:
Psalm 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God. . . .
Habakkuk 2:20 But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him! You might not even need the full prayer. Especially with a little practice, just the words “Our Father” might be enough to enduce a calm awareness of God. My wife, who has suffered greatly from anxiety, has found using the Lord’s prayer this way astonishingly effective. What especially surprised her is that, until the Lord showed her, she had never seen this prayer as a way of finding much-needed relief. She had been taught to see the Lord’s prayer as being self-focused and involving considerable effort, rather than God-centered and effortless. Then there are all those for whom the prayer has connotations of a meaningless ritual. For it to work, you, too, might need to use this prayer in what for you is a new way. It could be a wonderful adventure. Try imagining yourself in Moses’ sandals, looking after his father-in-law’s sheep, hour after endless hour, month after month, as they wandered on the far side of the desert. No crowds. No phone. No movies. No canned music; just the occasional bleat of a sheep or the distant cry of a bird of prey. No rush hour traffic; just the slow rhythm of the seasons. Think of David growing up as shepherd boy, or others waiting for their crops to grow. What a contrast to today’s pressures. What a relief it would be to have one percent of their stillness and laid-back lifestyle. As you ponder the Lord’s prayer, try to free yourself from the pressure to perform. Let go of any need to achieve anything within a certain timeframe. Ease yourself into it. It’s perfectly okay for an hour to pass with your mind drifting in and out of awareness of just one word of the prayer, with thoughts often wandering off-track like grazing sheep and little of consequence seeming to happen. If possible, get yourself comfy. You might even like to synchronize this prayer with calm breathing. Inhale deeply through your nose and exhale through your mouth. That can help settle a tense body. Our Father in heaven This is the focus any distressed person needs: letting go of the earthly – even if only for a moment – and dwelling on the heavenly; looking not at human inadequacy and concerns, but at our triumphant Lord reigning on high. Moreover, he is not aloof, but your father. Forget about human counterfeits: he is perfect. Let your worries vaporize: your well-being is your Father’s responsibility. may your name be kept holy. Let his concerns replace your own.
Let your Kingdom come. Lose yourself in the bigger picture: all that really matters is God’s perfect will. Surrender to him like a shivering person to a warm bath. Give us today our daily bread. Unburden yourself. Hand over to him responsibility for meeting your needs, and even for determining what your needs really are. He is your provider, not just materially, but in every other way. He will take care of your needs, one day at a time. Don’t be distracted by the future. The eternal Lord has that in hand. All that matters is today.
Forgive us our debts, You are not in the presence of a condemning God but a forgiving one. He holds no resentments. Rest in that, and likewise let your own resentments melt away. The welcome relief will be like ridding burrs from your socks.
Bring us not into temptation, Let the God of boundless wisdom, the one who alone has infinite intelligence and knowledge, be your leader. Hand over to him control of your life. For yours is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen. What matters is not your power and glory but his. Lose yourself in the greatness of the Almighty, the God of the impossible, the supreme Victor. Through Christ, you have spiritual union with the Perfect One. Like a vine and its branch (John 15:), you are a part of him, and he is a part of you. Through that union, you have his righteousness, his wisdom, his power. Bask in it. Rather than beating yourself up for your failings, let your heart fill with praises to him. Delight in him. Incidentally, the prayer begins not with my father – as thrillingly true as that is – but with our father, and continues in the plural throughout the prayer. Maybe no one on earth knows, or cares, what you are going through (actually, countless thousands would care if they truly knew) but no matter how isolated or rejected you feel, you are not alone. Accept it or not: you are part of Christ’s body: 1 Corinthians 12:15, 21-23, 26 If the foot would say, “Because I’m not the hand, I’m not part of the body,” it is not therefore not part of the body. . . . The eye can’t tell the hand, “I have no need for you,” or again the head to the feet, “I have no need for you.” No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. Those parts of the body which we think to be less honorable, on those we bestow more abundant honor; and our unpresentable parts have more abundant propriety . . . When one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. Consider these renditions of the beginning of 1 Corinthians 10:13:
No trial has overtaken you that is not faced by others. . . . (NET)
No testing has come to you that other people do not have. (Worldwide English New Testament) There are further helps for anxiety but to move on too soon would be counterproductive. Merely reading this and the previous webpage would achieve little more than being prescribed medication and leaving it on the shelf. Both webpages are like reading about how to get physically fit. They will not help until you practice doing what they say, and there will be no instant changes. You need to keep practicing until it becomes an ingrained habit, and then a way of life for you. That takes time and commitment, but you can do it. Do not wait until stressed out to remember to do it. The more stressed you are, the harder it is to do. The key to practicing virtually anything is to start with the simple and then more to the harder as you get more proficient. First, I urge you to do whatever it takes to ensure you can return here when needed. That is because rather than rushing ahead with more reading, it is best to pause for a while to build into your life the message of this and the previous webpage. Before then, however, I suggest prayerfully pondering these two webpages, seeking God for confirmation that it is what he wants for you, and if so, how he wants you to apply it.
There are two pages I would like to explain because the mere titles do not convey their importance and relevance. When afflicted by anxiety or low self-esteem, it is so liberating and empowering to be freed from a preoccupation with one’s self and one’s problems, and be lost in the greatness and perfection of your Savior. That’s where these two pages significantly help: The Unexpected Joy of Dying to Self (and the page it leads to)
Fear of Failure, Fear of Rejection, Fear of Obeying God, Fear of Pain Help When Doubt Knocks: How to Grow in Faith Fear of Witnessing: Witnessing Made Easy Peace: God’s Supernatural Answer to Worry, Panic, Fear and Doubt Comfort for the Guilt-Ridden Conscience Deepening Your Awareness of God’s Love for You You: More Powerful & Capable Than You Thought. Christian Encouragement How to Cope with Nightmares & Unwanted Dreams Post Traumatic Stress Disorder There’s Hope! A Sane Guide to Finding Hope When There is No Hope Scrupulosity (This and the pages it leads to feature Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)
 Not to be sold. © Copyright, 2020 Grantley Morris. May be freely copied in whole or in part provided: it is not altered; this entire paragraph is included; readers are not charged and it is not used in a webpage. Many more compassionate, inspiring, sometimes hilarious writings available free online at www.net-burst.net Freely you have received, freely give. For use outside these limits, consult the author.
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