The apostle Paul’s ultimate guide to overcoming anxiety. 5 steps to move toward peace.

anxiety

We live in a world that breeds anxiety. Stress, worry and anxiety our words that are as common as the common cold. I am not going to look at the reasons these things are so common but a couple thousand years ago a guy who was a prisoner of the Roman Empire penned some words that gives us a pathway forward.

First a disclaimer. I am not a phycologist nor do I play one on the internet. I am also not taking away from the role and benefit of a competent Christian counselor. There can be great value there. But the apostle Paul gives us a powerful roadmap to peace that overcomes anxiety. These steps can be life changing.

The place that Paul lays out this teaching is among two of the most famous passages in the Bible (Philippians 4:4-9). Until recently I did not notice the promise that connects the two paragraphs and builds us a pathway to walk forward. The promises are amazing: A peace that doesn’t make sense and that is would become like a fortress around your heart and mind. And the steps are so straightforward that anyone can do them.

  1. Bring your concern to God in prayer.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition …present your requests to God.” (v6)

Our beginning step is to pray about everything we are worried or anxious. Rick Warren has said, “If it is big enough to worry about it is big enough to pray about.” Or as Martin Luther said, “Pray and let God worry.” Depending on your level of anxiety you may need to bring it to God in prayer multiple times in the same hour. Mark Batterson puts it this way: “Think of worry as a prayer alarm. Every time it goes off you put it to prayer.” Your prayer life becomes your first step on a pathway to peace.

[tweetthis]“If it is big enough to worry about it is big enough to pray about.”-Rick Warren[/tweetthis]

     2. Cultivate habits of thanksgiving

If you are familiar with the scripture that we are looking at you may have noticed that I skipped over two words in the last step: With thanksgiving. We live in a world that it is easy to lose perspective. Thanksgiving is a powerful way to gain that perspective back again.

In my book Enjoying Prayer I share a simple habit that I use that makes thanksgiving a part of my everyday life. Whether you use that method or some other habit something daily that causes you to think of what you are thankful for can put things you are anxious about back in their right size. Thankfulness reminds us of the activity of God in our lives.

For me the habit of thankfulness helps anchor me to my current day and not borrow worry from tomorrow. As Dale Carnegie challenges in his excellent book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living it is important to live in “day tight compartments.” Or as Jesus challenges us, “Do not worry about tomorrow for today has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34)

   3. Change the content of your thought life.

Finally, brother and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things. (v. 8)

Paul moves on to show that if you are going to experience peace your thought life must follow certain patterns. He is saying that the content of our thought life effects the peace that you experience. The therapy world, when it comes to your thoughts, to Catch your thoughts, then Check your thoughts, and if need be Change/Replace your thoughts. Paul is giving us a filter to sort through our thought life. Two important strategies that are connected with this verse:

  • Cut certain inputs our of your life or at least decrease them

If what we feed our mind impacts us there may be certain things that Paul would encourage you to cut back on or even eliminate from your life. One example would be your news intake. We need to be aware that part of the goal of the news industry is to get you anxious enough in the news to stay engaged so they can sell more advertising. That is just one example that you need to think through from Paul’s perspective.

  • Add certain things to your thought life

Paul gives us a buffet of positive areas to focus our minds. What do you need to add into your life to get thinking the type of thoughts that Paul describes. One obvious but under used source is our Bible. I was interested to see how many of the words Paul encourages people to think about was also used to describe scripture in Psalm 19.

   4. Find encouragement from friends.

Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. (v. 9)

This verse could take a lifetime to unpack but it is talking it is about modeling actions. I imagine that when it was first read in the church at Philippi some people turned and looked at the jailor that had experienced Paul’s miraculous release from prison.

The first practice we see from Paul there is that he didn’t let himself get isolated. One preacher said that the jailor’s big mistake was that he put Paul and Silas too close together. Taking a moment to evaluate your relationships could give you wisdom on steps forward to freedom in your anxiety. Who do you need to add to your life?

   5. Change the soundtrack of your life.

Something happened in the jail cell when Paul and Silas began to sing. We see from the playing of David for Saul (1 Samuel 16) and the request of Elisha for music (2 Kings 3) that music can have great power to change our mood and the atmosphere. The helping profession would agree with that teaching. A powerful help to your anxiety levels made be to create a new playlist of worship music.

Which one of these 5 habits could you begin to work on to help you experience a new level of peace that to the world won’t make any sense?

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Praying about the oppression around you from the “powers” of the world.

Frustration

Sometimes the world can seem so out of control. We look at injustice or oppression and it feels  not right. We see systems and “kingdoms” doing bad and we can feel powerless and overwhelmed. Why does it seem in certain situations that evil seems to be winning? Maybe there is hope and a strategy for us in God’s word.

The other day my wife and I were talking about the books of the Bible and we observed that the book of Nahum doesn’t get a lot of press time. When was the last time that you heard a message on this prophet with a small book near the end of the Old Testament? Challenged by this conversation I set out to revisit to see what we could learn about God.

At first glance this book may seem like a terrible book to take someone to who is feeling overwhelmed by the “power” of the world. You might even expect to be more depressed than when you started. Although only three chapters you will be struck by the judgement feel that is poured out throughout.

But then you stop and remember the country or empire that would be experiencing this judgement. It was the evil power of the day. Nineveh would have been the Nazi Germany of the world that heard Nahum’s message. I was listening to a podcast and and the pastor pointed out that they would have been the bully’s of our day.

When we think of injustice or corrupt systems a bully is a good mental picture of what we are experiencing. The bully on the playground gets away with things because no one seems to stand in their way. I think of our brothers and sisters in Christ in areas where Christians are persecuted and the feeling of powerlessness against the “bully” would seem intense.

But Nahum reminds us of a couple things. First Nahum reminds us that the bully is no match for our God. At some point God’s justice will prevail. Nahum teaches us that the systems of this world don’t stand a chance.

Connected with this is the character of our God. As the podcast I was listening to on Nahum pointed out it is a lot like the children’s prayer, “God is great. God is good.” No matter what we see around us we can know that ultimately the good God will be great. Whether in this life or the next wrongs will be made right.

Which leads to one other thing. When we are frustrated with the way the world is working we can bring it to God. That is actually the best place to start. Sometimes we read the Psalms and it is almost uncomfortable to read as they express their frustration and anger with the world around them. But these types of passages are reminders that we are best to bring these things to God and then from that place we can receive instruction from Him on the specific part we are to play in the world around us.

3 Spiritual Benefits of being Physically Tired

Sleepy

We live in a day and age where everyone seems to feel like there, “are not enough hours in the day.” Many feel like a full night of sleep is a waste of time so they don’t. What if the reason that we can’t go without stopping is actually a good thing? What if there are actually spiritual benefits if we look for them? Here are just three that I have been thinking about:

1. It opens us to spiritual opportunities 

I was reading again the story where Jesus talks with a Samaritan woman in John 4. It is a conversation that changes her life and the life of her town. But I love the fact that it says that Jesus was sitting there because He was, “tired from the long walk.” (v. 6) Would we have been there or would we have been pushing on to our next agenda item? Certain ministry opportunities can only happen at a slower pace.

[tweetthis]Certain ministry opportunities can only happen at a slower pace.[/tweetthis]

2. It helps you enter into “rest”

I have seen this picture of a t-shirt that says, “Jesus took naps. Be like Jesus. Mark 4:38” Often when I am helping lead a prayer and fasting retreat for pastors I need to remind them of, “the spirituality of a nap.” When we become physically tired we are reminded of the fact that rest is part of the rhythm that God created. We want to push through that in our society but we do that to our own peril. When we forget rest we also miss a great space to enjoy God. One of the benefits of the Israelites going into exile was that the land got to rest. (2 Chronicles 36:21) We can use our physical tiredness to remind us that we were designed to enjoy rest.

3. Reminds us of our humanity 

Part of the challenge of our day is that the world never stops. With the 24 hour news cycle there is always some “crisis” happening somewhere. In our ever moving world we can forget our own humanity. Physical tiredness reminds us of that humanity. And our humanness is something we would be wise not to forget. Nathan Foster, in his great book The Making of An Ordinary Saint, says “grace understands our humanness.” We would do well to understand that too. In a world where it is easy to try and live up to all our friends social media feeds physical tiredness can remind us that we (and they) are simply one person trying to walk out our lives with Jesus.

So maybe today you are feeling tired and need to look at it differently. Slow down and look for the opportunities around you as you slow your pace. Maybe you can let your tiredness remind you that you need to schedule that next vacation. Or maybe you simply need to rest in the fact that you are a human being not a human doing and enjoy God today.