Anxiousness
Anxiety. That unsettling feeling in your chest telling you “something is wrong”.
But is something wrong?
At times it is. And the feeling is your body telling you things are off.
At other times, nothing is wrong. Yet the feeling remains.
Sometimes things are wrong, not in your life, but in someone else’s life. And yet you get the same feeling in your chest.
I hate that feeling.
You can’t reason it away. Logic is not the key to unlock its shackles. Despite my best efforts, it remains within my chest.
“Something is wrong”.
Why God?
I know the world is broken. I know we are the most anxious generation. I know God is in control theologically, but sometimes my body doesn’t.
I know I have no control over 98% of my life and the world around me. But I like to pretend. I feel safe when I am in control. Hence the problem. If I am not in control over 98% of life, and yet I only feel safe when I am in control, that’s a lousy ratio of feeling safe- the percentage of milk.
How do you feel peace when you are not in control?
Think about that.
Do we even know we are not in control? Or do some live so deep within delusion that they believe they are in control? My time as a hospital chaplain revealed a truth: no one is in control. The most careful parent’s child dies, the most careless parent’s child lives. One person dedicated to health and nutrition is sick, someone who eats Twinkies every day lives to 100.
I know this sounds Nihilistic. The idea that nothing matters. If we are not in control, who cares about anything? Just do whatever you want. Nothing matters. I do not subscribe to that. A lot of people really do live longer and healthier lives because they invest energy into nutrition and health. And a lot of people really do die sooner because they do not take care of their bodies.
But you don’t have to be a nihilist to come to realize, control is a mist. It is there in the air. But try to grab it, and it slips through your fingers.
List
How do you feel peace when you are not in control? I don’t really know, but here is a list of thoughts because I like lists:
Step one: surrender to the watery current of control. You cannot tame it. You cannot fight it. You must simply ride it out. It is like quicksand. The more you fight for control in life, the more you sink.
Take ownership of your life and be responsible. Your actions do have meaning and consequences. Just because you are not in control of 98% of things that happen to you does not mean you are not in control of how you respond.
Read the Psalms. You will find people who love God, yet struggle with their internal feelings and thoughts. Consider Psalm 55:
My heart shudders within me;
terrors of death sweep over me.
5 Fear and trembling grip me;
horror has overwhelmed me.
Do you see the language? Shudder, sweep, grip, horror, overwhelmed. Sounds like anxiety to me.
6 I said, “If only I had wings like a dove!
I would fly away and find rest.
7 How far away I would flee;
I would stay in the wilderness.Selah
8 I would hurry to my shelter
from the raging wind and the storm.”
To be a Bird
How I feel this at times. To be a bird and fly away from the pressures and anxieties of modern life. To get above it all. To find a shelter amidst the war.
Do you see the beautiful imagery the psalmist is painting? When we feel our hearts shudder and terrors sweep over us, and are gripped by fear and overwhelmed, fly somewhere.
We all fly somewhere when hard feelings grip us. Entertainment, video games, alcohol, drugs, porn, exercise, food. But the Psalmist is offering a different option. Later in the Psalm he says:
Cast your burden on the Lord,
and he will sustain you
Take your feeling and cast it upon the Lord. Tell Him about it. Explain it. Pour it out.
In my experience, this does not usually bring immediate peace, if by peace we mean the removal of hard feelings.
But if peace means I am no longer alone in my feeling, then maybe it does bring peace. Because in casting my burden upon the Lord, I am no longer alone.
Peace
Peace isn’t always the absence of anxiety. Maybe it’s the presence of God in the middle of it.
And maybe, just maybe, this side of heaven, that is the ministry of Christ to our anxious generation. Someone who gets it. Who sits with you. Who weeps with you. Who has gone through the darkest nights of this life too, so He understands.
And maybe, as unsatisfying as it feels in this moment, our greatest hope for the removal of hard feelings is not bound up in this life, but the next:
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”… “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them…‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”
-Revelation 21
Thankful Christ dwells with us in the now, and is making a new home for us that is far better,
Josh.
