soul

ANXIETY ANTIDOTE

Image posted on by A Seasoned Sage

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!

 

FAITH

Image posted on by A Seasoned Sage

What does the word faith elicit in your mind ?  The definition of faith is…” confidence or trust in a person or thing”. Perhaps we should ask ourselves again, in whom do we trust? Is it our President, our boss, our parent, some other family member, or perhaps some other champion of our lives. Children today are influenced by video games and what they view on TV. They begin to believe in spider man, batman, superman, or a number of fantasy characters; sometimes so much so that when they grow they cannot distinguish fantasy from reality and become confused. Parents naturally want to protect their children from the hard realities but allow those same children to become absorbed in video games that merely desensitize  children to reality. Many become disillusioned by reality when they have to face it, and life becomes bitter. We are all prone to lose hope that the future will be any better. Day after day, the news today is depressing, negative beyond imagination. As a nation, as a world community, we all live in a time of anxiety, full of multitude uncertainties. We witness acts of evil all over the world, and become anxious that such things could happen in our town, possibly even next door. We are reminded of our own mortality and wonder about how our own life might end, about our relationship with God. We silently ask ourselves …”Am I responsible for my own life and actions? Am I going to be held to account for what I have done, what I have thought? Is there a judgement?” When we think that our soul (most of us realize we have one of those) might go on into eternity, more questions…” Does the soul really separate from the body at physical death  and where does it go? Is my soul going where it might be better or worse than existence in this body on this earth? Is there really a heaven and hell?” Most of us have had these thoughts in one form or another as we mature, and many of us have become anxious as a result of these real questions. How can we become settled, at peace, as we confront these very basic issues to all of mankind? In whom can we place our trust? Perhaps now is a time to ask yourself a crucial question; what DO I believe? In whom do I have trust? I believe what a person believes and in whom each one of us places our FAITH makes a crucial difference with regard to eternity and this is universally true for all of mankind.

Most people have some system of beliefs on which they pattern their own lives. We naturally seek to emulate role models. We learn how to live from the examples of others, mothers and fathers, grandparents, pastors, teachers, mentors generally older than us, and presumably possessing greater wisdom. The influence of these role models shapes much of how we develop and who we become as adults. And some of our behavior, psychologists say, are manifestations of our subconscious mind, due to retained memories which may have been locked there for long periods of time, perhaps experiences we had from childhood which have unknowingly shaped who we have become. We learn so much from the particular society, culture, surroundings in which we exist. We adapt to our environment through our senses; touch, smell, taste, hearing, seeing. Our experiences tend to modify our basic understanding, our belief system, for the better or worse. For example if we live with a negative person long enough we often find it rubs off on us. If we are trained in deceptive business practices when newly in business, we might see it as normal and acceptable; it’s the way of the world. We believe in right and wrong because somehow that has been built into us. But the differences between right and wrong sometimes become indistinct; the area between them becomes grey, no longer black and white, and we adapt by what we adopt in our mind. We learn so much by our life experience, often far more than we learn from what we are taught; true to the old adage ..”Experience is the best teacher”. What part does faith play in our belief system and what is the measure and substance of that faith? 

Throughout much of my life I have wrestled with these questions.  After years of regretting the experiences of my childhood,  I became grateful for the beginnings I had!  The family that parented me and the circumstances in which I was born were by no means perfect, or even agreeable to me at the time. But despite all the struggles, actually because of all the difficulties, I began to believe that my existence is not an accident, it had been planned by my Creator all along.  I asked myself the questions posed above and sought real answers. How did this change come about? God did the work out of His great love for me; He gave me the gift of faith.

I believe God’s spirit is implanted within each one of us human beings from the moment we are created in our mother’s womb. I had the good fortune and privilege of being born into a Christian family in the United States of America. I am grateful for the freedom I have as an American to believe as I do and worship as I please.  I was baptized in a Christian church when an infant and know God honored that in my life. I was taught about God from an early age in Sunday school and much of what I heard, saw and read was retained in my mind. When I came of age to make decisions for my self, I put aside much of what I was taught, and pursued my own destiny. I was determined to make something of myself, until disaster struck. But then God in His benevolence revealed the truth of his word to me; …”For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). I realized in those moments that I was on a self defeating path to destroying everything I had worked towards because I was following my thoughts and had set my own will accordingly. I confessed that I was indeed a sinner for I was ashamed and convicted of the way I had conducted my life to that point. And I knew I could not fix myself. I accepted Christ as MY Lord and Savior, God as my spiritual Father, and invited the Holy Spirit to become operative in my life. That day, over 43 years ago, I became a person of faith. God has remained steadfastly present in my life ever since, even though I have repeatedly strayed from Him.  I am continually reminded of His promises expressed through His son …”I will never leave you nor forsake you”.  That truth has been certainly borne out in my life. The Bible says …”Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1 KJV). In WHOM do you have faith?

“Faith of our fathers, faith and prayer shall win all nations unto thee; And through the truth that comes from God, mankind shall then indeed be free.

Faith of our fathers, holy faith! We will be true to thee till death.”

AMEN

Prayer

Posted on by A Seasoned Sage

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA A PRAYER TO GOD!

Please make my soul like a dry reservoir. Let it be always thirsty for Truth, like the dry earth welcoming the new rain that comes down from the heavens. Fill my soul with what my heart yearns for most, the very real presence of your Holy Spirit to comfort me in times of distress and grief, to convict me of my own sinful ways that separate me from You, and to guide me along the narrow way. Continually enlighten me with the Truth and guard me from the grasp of the evil one.When my heart becomes troubled by the evils of this world, and all my personal cares and concerns of the realities of the present begin to weigh me down, help me to quickly flee to You for the protection of my soul. In times of personal crisis, grant me the courage to stand against the tempter to disavow your everlasting love and faithfulness. By Your grace and mercy I pray I strive to become a faithful soldier of the cross borne by Jesus Christ, Your only Son and my Lord! All this I ask you complete in me by your generous grace and mercy. AMEN