I walked into church tonight with my body tense from anxiety. For weeks now, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed and stressed…and for no good reason. Even though my mind knows I have nothing to fear and no reason for worry, my body seems to be in a constant state of panic. It’s amazing how we can know something in our heads and yet still struggle to let the idea take up residence in our hearts. Our actions sometimes are slow to respond to what our mind believes.
This has definitely been the case with me recently. I firmly believe…
- God will equip me for everything He asks of me
- Worrying is never helpful and God desires for us to trust Him with our needs
- I am the Lord’s daughter, chosen, and beloved, and He delights in me even when I fail
- His grace is sufficient for me!
I have no doubt that these statements are true. Yet I can’t always seem to get my heart to fully embrace these concepts and live like I believe them.
Today my sister reminded me that sometimes we have to do something more tangible to get ourselves to fully recognize what our head already knows. She suggested I say aloud some of these things so I could actually hear the words and experience them with my senses.
I did that, and it was amazing how much it helped. I went out on my porch and felt the cool breeze on my skin. I said a few of these reminders out loud and then I prayed audibly and fervently to the Lord to help me feel in my spirit His truth and wisdom. Clearly, if someone had walked up to my house at this moment, they might have thought I was a little crazy, visibly alone and yet talking out loud on my porch. But I didn’t care. It was exactly what I needed to do.
I believe God designed us to learn through our senses. We need reminders, rituals, ceremonies, celebrations, visual cues, and other tangible ways to experience and understand all He wants to teach us. So this verbal acknowledgement helped me internalize and feel what I already knew.
Unfortunately, I can’t say I was immediately free from all my anxiety. Like pesky lint that just won’t rub off, a few pieces of fear and worry held on tightly, no doubt attempts from Satan to steal my joy and rob me of peace. And to make matters worse, right before church, a situation arose with my oldest son that caused some extra tension. So when I walked into the church building tonight, I was still wrestling a bit with finding that “peace that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7).” This promise from a scripture I have recited for years was in my head but still it felt just beyond my grasp.
Then we had a time of worship, and God so pointedly touched my heart while I sang the beautiful song “Lord, I Need You” by Matt Maher.
Lord I come, I confess
Bowing here, I find my rest
Without You, I fall apart
You're the one that guides my heart
Lord, I need You, oh I need You
Every hour, I need You
My one defense, my righteousness
Oh God, how I need You
As I sang this song, God filled my heart with such peace and joy. Admitting to the Lord that I need Him was so powerful, a beautiful reminder that I will find my rest only in Him, not in any other person or thing. As I professed to the Lord my dependence on Him, an image permeated my thoughts–a vision of me writing my worries on a paper, naming them, confessing them, and then handing that paper over to the Lord, literally placing it all in His hands.
When I got home tonight, I did this very thing. I quickly wrote out all the woes and responsibilities I had snatched from God and taken on as my own. Those things that swirled in my head but was afraid to actually say aloud, the fears I didn’t want to admit I had–I wrote those down too. Then I prayed and submitted all my fears and worries into my precious Savior’s hands. I folded the paper up and put it in my Bible on the page with the scripture of Philippians 4:6-7, “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 transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (NIV).”
On the one hand it seems like a silly ritual a child might do. On the other hand, this was an act of faith and a symbolic gesture that helped my heart and my mind connect.
I write all these things for two reasons. One, I want you to know that everyone struggles at times with worry and fear. There wouldn’t be so many scriptures about it otherwise! Even a person like me, who tends to seem all put together on the outside, has moments when I just can’t shake my doubts and live out my faith the way I know I should.
The second point is the most important…There is hope. Though you may occasionally journey into the land of anxiety, you don’t have to live there permanently. Trust God with your heart. Cast your cares on Him. Pray. Take time to acknowledge your fears and then lay them at the Lord’s feet.
“May the God of Hope fill you with all Joy and Peace as you trust in Him.” ~Romans 15:13
Growing By Surprise 