Overcoming Anxiety
Anxious people are stressful people.
Many times anxious people stress over things that everyone else sees as a little problem, and truthfully, if it was someone else, you would probably call it a little problem, as well. We tend to treat problems like surgery, the only minor surgery is the one happening to someone else, and the only minor problem is the one someone else is having. Matthew 11:29 says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.”
Doctors will tell you that the cure for stress is to rest; the true cure is to rest in the Lord.
So with anxiety causing all of these problems within our lives, where do we find an answer?
I can tell you that the answer is not in the latest drug that is on the market. No, the answer is found in Psalm 37:3-5. “Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.”
There are four things listed in this passage that David used to overcome anxiety himself. These four things produce the antidote that is needed to exterminate the poison of anxiety. Let’s examine them each beginning with the first statement made in verse three.
First, Trust in the Lord.
At first glance you may say, “I have trusted in the Lord. I have accepted the Lord, and I even try to live by faith.” However, if you are troubled by anxiety, the first thing that you have to face up to is that you have a lack of trust in the Lord. Romans 10:17 gives an answer to increasing your trust in the Lord. It says, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Sometimes the Scriptures are so simple, we pass right over the truth that they convey.
If you want to increase your faith or trust in the Lord, you must hear the word of God. If you will get a copy of the Bible on tape or CD and play it on a regular basis, you will begin to increase your trust in the Lord. Don’t take my word for it, just accept God’s. I have heard many concepts on how to increase your faith, yet God couldn’t have been any more plain. 1 Peter 2:2 tells us, “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:”
He is not only talking to babies, but to those who have grown in Christ, as well, yet the admonition is the same, desire the Word and it will cause you to grow. There is a danger that we will treat the Word with less and less significance as we are longer in Christ. It can become familiar; we think that we have heard it before and already have a predisposed idea of what it says. Yet we are to hear it as if for the first time. We are to listen to it as though we had never heard. This hunger and longing after the Word of God allows the Holy Spirit to minister faith to our souls as we grow through the Word.
I am amazed that even though I have been saved now almost twenty-six years, there have been times that I have read my Bible out of duty rather than love. When I read it out of love, I often see things that I had missed before. How wonderful it is to see the scriptures in a fresh way, the excitement of God speaking to my soul never gets old. Immerse yourself in the Word of God. Read it, listen to it, hear it preached, and it will increase your faith.
