Has your life encountered periods of turmoil? Just when you feel reasonably settled and are prone to think “all is right with my world” , then BOOM a bomb seems to explode and your peaceful world is rocked! Like when a doctor tells you that perhaps you have cancer, or you receive word that a loved one has died, or you discover you owe a large bill you never knew you were even responsible for, or any other crisis you encounter in the routine course of living! For many of us, it doesn’t take much to disrupt our peace that can lead to anxiety. Or perhaps like so many we live in a constant state of anxiety; our lives feel out of control all the time.

We live in a REAL WORLD and it is full of EVIL – it surrounds us and threatens to engulf us! This world is full of pain and suffering and most of us are touched by that most days of our lives some way or other!  Most of us experience some level of anxiety many times in our lives. How we get there is not as important as how we deal with it when it occurs.

Fear, which is a stronger sensation is a synonym for  anxiety.  Most of us are aware when we are struck by FEAR; we know how that feels from a very early age. Most people are taught to hide their fears; mostly true for men. If we expose our fears, we are often counseled to face them, especially if they are deemed illogical or arising out of some trauma we may have already experienced.  Some fears can be a good thing!  If fear is founded in contemplation of a negative outcome to our choices, our actions (i.e. eternal separation from God if we don’t get right with God), that can be a good thing. For the Bible says “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”.  And it is certain that wisdom dictates that we make the right choice in regard to eternity while we still have breath. So, fear when properly dealt with, can be a helpful emotion to guide us along a good path and we would be foolish to try to ignore all the fears we encounter in during the routine process of living.

Anxiety, a less intense version of FEAR, is defined as “a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome”.  Anxiety can obscure itself pretty well in our psyche, especially if we are trained to “handle” our feelings in our own strength, which can lead to an insensitivity in our lives.  This often manifests itself in a lack of care for our fellow -man and self-centeredness (concerned solely with one’s own desires, needs, or interests). And that can lead to an unhealthy way of living, and might result in mental or physical illness. We have all seen examples of this trend in our present world unless we have chosen to do our best to ignore reality! After 9/11 and all the “live” news that has been broadcast regarding terrorism which has become widespread throughout the world, the more frequent senseless acts of  evil being perpetrated daily, the dissension between our two political parties which seems to be paving the way towards anarchy, and the obvious changes taking place so rapidly, it’s no surprise that most Americans feel unease despite the relative “security” of our rule of law and balanced system of government! Reports of the tremendous escalation in the rate of suicide especially among the youth, the increase in the widespread use of mind altering drugs and pain killers, the trend towards legalization suicide among the aged; all are symptoms of the increase in hopelessness that pervades our society.  Isn’t it clear all these trends are the result of oppressive anxiety?

If you are a Christian, as I am, and worship an almighty, all-powerful God, shouldn’t you have expectations of a life of peace and tranquility, a life free of anxiety? Of course you should, because that is one of the promises God has made to His called children. However, that is not a promise He has said He will fulfill in this present world. But that is what our present world promotes as our due, even in many “Christian” circles. We are lulled into thinking that because we have committed our lives to Christ that we are therefore deserving of an enchanted life. Many are prone to think that they deserve a better life than what we actually have. We often make plans of how life should play out for us and then do our very best to assure that those plans come to pass. When our plans are disrupted by circumstances beyond our control, we then find ourselves getting angry and anxious! When I have stubbornly pushed forward with my self made “plans” (the product of my self-will) and despite my abilities to hurdle “obstacles”,  I have always experienced undesirable consequences. I have brought more pain and suffering on myself. It has taken me many years to learn that God loves me so much that He will not allow me to destroy my own life. When things have gone awry , I often resorted to blaming others for the results of my actions. However I have learned to pray and sought God’s truth in recent years, and He has revealed that most often I have brought trouble, suffering, pain upon myself by my desires to be my own independent person. God wants to be Lord of my life and to submit MY WILL to Him. It is He who has a plan for my life, no matter what age I am. When I have sought HIS WILL and yielded MY WILL to HIS WILL in obedience, and regardless of the difficulty in doing so many times, the outcome has always been favorable. And the anxiety that was so constantly present within has subsided substantially. I have not, nor do I expect to reach perfection in this mortal frame, but how I live my life today is much better than how I have lived for seven decades. I try to live by one of my favorite scriptures:

“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He will direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3;5-6)

And one of my favorite hymns is

When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word,
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will, He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey.

• Refrain:
  Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
  To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey

I cannot find in the Bible any passage where God promised us a life exempt from suffering. However, God has prescribed  a way for us to live free of the kind of anxiety that almost always accompanies physical and emotional suffering and can eventually oppress our spirit. We have to first recognize that there is a spiritual warfare going on in each of our souls and the enemy of ALL our spiritual struggles is the same today as has been for millennia; be aware that Satan is alive and active. He is a defeated foe but seeks to rob all believers of the life God wishes them to have in preparation of eternity. We live in a fallen world and though we have been redeemed by the sacrifice of God’s Son, we are called to do battle against the spiritual foes of our lives. If we choose to ignore this reality, we can become ineffective as soldiers of the cross that we are called to be, the light shining on the hill, the salt of the earth. We are not called to live lives of passivity like lame ducks just living out our tenure as mortals. We are called to put on the armor of God and do battle against the arch enemy of our Lord and consequently the arch enemy of our own souls! So, how do we have victory over anxiety especially the oppressive anxiety that can plague every one of us day to day? I suggest that the first step is to seek the TRUTH in God’s word; read it, study it and pray for wisdom to see the TRUTH. You will not be disappointed! In His final hours, Jesus prayed to His Father (and ours) for His disciples:

“I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” (John 17;14-17 NIV)

REMEMBER THESE TRUTHS AND THE ONES GOD’S HOLY SPIRIT WILL REVEAL TO YOU IN THE COMING DAYS, WEEKS, MONTHS, YEARS AS YOU SEEK HIM IN HIS WORD! FOR HE CHANGES NOT AND HIS WORD IS TRUTH!