Anxiety and Worry, Part 2

Books that helped:
A Lifting Up for the Downcast by William Bridges
All Things for Good by Thomas Watson
The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes
Anxious for Nothing (originally published as Anxiety Attacked) by John MacArthur
Overcoming Fear, Worry, and Anxiety by Elyse Fitzpatrick
A Steadfast Heart by Elyse Fitzpatrick
A Shelter in the Time of Storm by Paul David Tripp
Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled by Martyn Lloyd-Jones

What do these books have in common? They are based on Scripture

Anxiety and Worry, part 1

Anyone who is honest has struggled with anxiety and/or worry at one time or another. There are plenty of causes, both internal and external, for either.

Will I meet the right person to marry? Will I get into the school I want to attend? Will I get a job that supports me sufficiently? Will I be able to be a good parent? Will I be able to help my parents in ways that are useful to them? Will I even be able to have a child? Will my marriage last? Will I run out of money?

Many such questions can cause us anxiety, produce anxious thoughts, and worry takes over our minds and our lives.

I should know. I have been a victim of anxiety. It started when I was in college, many years ago. It got to the point that I had to leave school for a while. Providentially, I was able to pull myself together, return (under probation, admittedly), and complete my degree.

But that was not the end of my struggles.

How have I been able to deal with these recurring matters? Through Scripture, counseling based on Scripture, prayer, repenting, facing the fears that are behind my anxiety and worry, rejoicing instead in God's eternal goodness and faithfulness.

I went through a major struggle when we first moved to California, and I found a great deal of help from Elizabeth George's book, Loving God with All Your Mind, because it directed me to 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 and Philippians 4:6-8. Philippians 4:8 also gave me a grid through which to process my thoughts and my emotions.

(Other books which have assisted me are many, because they too are based on Scripture; posting those as a separate list.)

There are dozens of places in both the Old Testament and the New Testament which deal with these issues of the heart.

I have not "arrived." But now I know where to go and Who to go to when, as these Psalms: 94:19--"When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul"; 139:23-24--"Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts, and see if there is any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way."

Let me end this with what Jesus Himself said, recorded in Matthew 6:33-34; H summaries with this admonition: "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own" (look also at verses 25-32).

The Sole Sovereign

There is One Sovereign over time and eternity,
One over man and every kind of beast alike,
One over rulers and nations both,
One over all hearts of great and small,
One Sole Sovereign over all.
There is One alone who reigns over
All creation known and unknown.
There is One who creates each child
In its mother's womb,
One who causes physical growth, and brings about
A miraculous second birth.
There is a Sole Sovereign whatever man may say,
And that Sovereign has all under His sway.

How Is Christ Sufficient? and Because Christ

How Is Christ Sufficient?

S - Savior (Matt. 1:21)
U - Unifier (Eph. 2:13-18)
F - Faithfulness (Phil. 1:6; 1 Thess. 5:24)
F - Friend (John 15:14-15)
I - Immanuel (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:23)
C - Changeless (Heb. 13:8)
I - Intercessor (Rom. 8:34)
E - Eternity (John 17:3)
N - Nearness (Heb. 13:5-6)
T - Triumph (2 Cor. 2:14; Col. 2:15)

Because Christ

Because Christ took on flesh
While remaining Holy God,
He experienced all we humans do
Of joy and of sorrow and of temptation;
Yet because He never gave way to temptation,
He served as our Substitute,
In life and in death,
Before the Father.
Because Christ is now seated at the right hand of the Father,
He serves as our Intercessor,
Perfectly suited as such.
Because Christ lived and lives,
We can bring our anxieties to Him and
He knows what that temptation to be anxious is.
We can bring our joys to Him and
He knows what joy is like.
We can bring our deepest sorrows to Him and
He knows deep sorrow, too.
O how perfect our Christ is in all ways!

Epiphany

According to dictionary.com,  this is a noun having four meanings:
1. (Initial capital letter) a Christian festival, observed on January 6, commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the gentiles in the persons of the Magi; Twelfth-day.
2. an appearance or manifestation, especially of a deity.
3. a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence  or experience.
4. a literary work or section of a work presenting, usually symbolically, such a moment of revelation and insight.

I had something similar to numbers 3 and 4 back in March 1986 and am including it today as this is Epiphany 2015.

Epiphany

repetitive reflexes relax responsible.
there is something to be said,
but who am I to say it?
simpler to self surround
with written sound.
and on the Thursday last,
sitting at a blonde round table
which was thoroughly engraved
with collegiate graffiti,
sitting
annotating THE DIVINE IMPERATIVE,
merely being
there
three months prior to
the fifteenth anniversary of my death
in Minneapolis' General Hospital,
again the question,
why do I live again?
but
this time, and from this time,
answered: because it is His good pleasure.

After all these years, the same comforting truth is that God spared my life in June 1971 not because I was particularly worthy of that, but because it pleased Him, and I have tried to live in light of that light.