Overcoming Anxiety
BY MARK CROCCO
Philippians 4:6,7 Has anyone described you or have you described anyone as being uptight, high-strung or stressed out? Most likely you have, as our age has been appropriately labeled as the "age of anxiety".
Even Christians are not immune from anxiety and its negative consequences. Quite possibly, some of the greatest emotional struggles we are facing relate to the issue of anxiety. We need some help, some direction, some hope.
Thankfully, in Philippians 4:6,7, God has given us His ultimate solution for overcoming anxiety. It is prayer. And based on that passage, I want to share with you how prayer can bring us the inner peace that we all long for.
The presence of God
To start with, prayer sensitizes us to the ever presence of God. This truth is implied in verse 6: "Be anxious for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." We pray because we know God is there.The particular root of the Greek word for "anxious" carries some very powerful concepts. It literally means to divide, to tear, to cut or to rip. That's what anxiety does to us emotionally. It tears us up. It rips us apart. But Paul says here that we are to be anxious for nothingnot even one single thing.
That's hard, I know. We want to trust God, we want Christ to be the master of our lives, yet most of us are still anxious about our finances or health, about the failure in our lives, or about our being accepted by others. And as parents, we also find it hard these days not to be anxious about our children.
But when God says "Be anxious for nothing", He means nothingnot our finances, not our children, not our health, not our anything. In the Greek text, this statement is an imperative. It is a command. We simply stop worrying out of obedience.
The sovereignty of God. But God has not just given us that command and left us there. Verse 6 continues, "but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." You need not be anxious, in other words, because you can overcome anxiety through prayer.
Notice how all-inclusive this statement also is. We are to pray in everything. That means in every circumstance, in every area of our lives. It stresses that God is sovereign; nothing is outside of His total control.
This verse first uses a word for prayer that is very general. It speaks of subjects coming into the presence of a sovereign. It has the idea of worshipping and adoring and acknowledging the lofty position of the Almighty God.
Paul is effectively saying, "If you know whom you are praying to, then every time you pray, you will remember that God is the supreme ruler of the universe. He is in control of the very circumstance you find yourself in."
Consistent with this truth, here's a statement which I believe will change your life if you remind yourself of it whenever you pray: Nothing in my life is too big for God to handle or too small for God to be interested in.
Personal relationship. Prayer sensitizes us not only to the sovereign presence of God, but the personal presence of God as well. This is reflected in the three other expressions Paul uses in verse 6 for prayer.
The first is supplication. A supplication is a very personal petition that one brings before God. It relates to some specific need of our own or of someone that we love, someone that we care for. By using this word in this command, God wants us to relate to Him in a personal way.
Do you know what excites me more than anything else? The fact that I can relate to my God on two levels. On one level, my God is my Lord and Master. I worship Him; I praise Him; and I want to serve Him. But on the other, God is my Abba, Father. I am a child of His; I belong to Him; and I am loved by Him supremely.
Thanksgiving. Not too long ago, I was in the company of a family where a little child was absolutely in control. About the same age as my son, that boy was very demanding. He literally dictated everything that Mom and Dad did. I thought to myself, "God forbid should I ever enter the presence of my Heavenly Father in a demanding way."
Whenever we pray, we must do so with a grateful heart. This is what Paul is getting at when he uses the phrase "with thanksgiving" in verse 6. We don't storm the gates of heaven making demands of God. We humbly enter His presence, acknowledging who He is and thankful for all that He's done for us.
But Paul says something else: "Let your requests be made known to God." You can't get more personal than that, can you? God is saying to us: "I invite you to come; bring those very personal and specific needs of yours before me. Understand that I'm not just your sovereign, but I am your caring Father."
The peace of God
Besides sensitizing us to the sovereign and personal presence of God, prayer also produces the peace of God in our lives. Verse 7 reads, "And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."What does "the peace of God" mean? For one thing, it is the peace that originates in God; it is a heavenly peace that humans cannot manufacture.
In the context of Philippians 4, we might also say that the peace of God is the absence of anxiety. It's the absence of internal strife and conflict and agitation. Put in a positive way, the peace of God is the presence of inner tranquility in spite of hostile external circumstances. When we talk about the peace of God, therefore, we talk about something that's happening on the inside.
Paul and Silas. In Acts 16, there is a beautiful account of Paul and Silas experiencing this inner peace. They had a bad day. The crowd had risen up together against them and had inflicted many blows upon them. They were then thrown into the worst part of the prison, and with their feet fastened in the stocks at that.
But notice their response in verse 25: "But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying, and they were singing hymns of praise to God: and the prisoners were listening to them. And suddenly there came a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison house were literally shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's chains were unfastened."
We have two men here who know how to live above their circumstances. Two men that are not bound by what is happening in their lives physically at this moment. Two men who understand that the inner peace of God can be had no matter how badly people treat them, no matter how terrible outside conditions are.
Notice that Paul and Silas were praying. It was through their prayer that they enjoyed such an intimate fellowship and communion with God that they were able to experience His peace.
Nothing in my life is too big for God to handle or too small for God to be interested Peace of mind. I love the passage in Isaiah 26:3, where Isaiah says: "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace..."
Who is it that God will keep in perfect, or complete, peace? The one "whose mind is stayed on thee"the one who continually focuses his mind on the Lord through prayer.
So what's happening in the realm of thoughts lies the key to emotional help. You cannot pray unless you set your focus upon the Lord and determine that your mind is going to be stayed upon Him.
If you have never experienced the peace of God, it's highly possible that you've never experienced peace with God. Our salvation through Jesus Christ is that which enables us to experience the peace of God. So, until we have placed our faith and trust in Him, until we are no longer at war with God, we will never be able to experience the peace of God.
Beyond comprehension. Verse 7 describes the peace of God as that which surpasses all comprehension. That verb "to surpass" literally means "to rise above". Paul is thus saying that God's peace rises above or transcends all our human capacity to understand it. It defies analysis. It defies explanation.
Recently, God used a woman powerfully in my life. She was a woman who, at the age of 28, discovered that she had cancer while she was carrying her second child. The cancer was so serious that the doctors had to induce the child because she was not going to live long enough to bear that child. The child was born. And three weeks after that, she died.
It was during that time frame that I had interaction with this woman. Some other people that I know very well also had interaction with her. And everyone has said the same thing. There was one quality that marked her life more than anything; it was peace. In her was a beautiful submission to the will of God, a submission that I have seen only in a few other people.
To give birth to a child and to know that you'll not be there for that child. Oh, how we could question the will of God, the purposes of God, the plan of God. But she didn't. She did pray, and God gave her a peace that was beyond description. I can't explain her response. I can only say that it rises above my little mind's comprehension. And yours as well.
Divine protection. In our country in recent days, there is a major movement a good movement, I think toward maintaining good health. The emphasis is that good physical health comes when you have the proper diet and when you exercise regularly. That's what we're being told.
As a pastor, let me say that your emotional and spiritual health is also related to your diet and your exercise. Our diet is to feed on the Word of God daily, and our exercise is the exercise of spiritual discipline, the exercise of unceasing prayer. Prayer enables us to respond to the truth that God has deposited in our hearts and in our minds through our diet.
That the peace of God that God gives us keeps us healthy emotionally and spiritually is what Paul means when he writes in verse 7, "And the peace of God...shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." The word "guard" is a military term. It literally means "to protect".
Philippi was a Roman colony. There were soldiers who protected the peace of those who lived at Philippi from enemy attacks. The Philippians would have been familiar with those guards, those protectors. So, Paul tells them that God's peace is their spiritual guard, their spiritual protector.
Inner health. Where are the realms in which God protects us? "Our hearts and our minds." As we pray, God protects our emotions and our thoughts. He's concerned about the inner man. So, prayer is the key to our having good emotional and spiritual health.
When we're not on our knees, we are spiritually unhealthy. I don't care how many books you read, how many services you attend, how much money you give, how much you testify for Jesus Christ. If you're not on your knees praying, broken, humble and dependent upon God, you are not spiritually healthy.
And the sign of great sickness in the church today is that our lack of prayer has become the norm. And we've all settled for that.
How is it all possible for this divine peace which transcends all comprehension to ultimately guard our hearts and our minds? The verse ends with these words: "In Christ Jesus."
It is in the name of Jesus Christ that we pray. It is through Him and His work that we have become a child of God. Christ is the agent. He is the means. He is the channel. And it is His presence, His power, His authority and His peace that are available to us.
Conclusion
How is your emotional state? Are you high-strung? Are you stressed out, a worrywart? God has a solution for you, and that solution is a life of consistent, broken prayer before Him.Prayer will increase our sensitivity to the presence of God. It reminds us that sovereign God is in total control of all the circumstances around us and that our Heavenly Father will never forsake us. Prayer also enables us to experience the peace of God, the unexplainable peace that guards our emotional and spiritual health.
One final word: If you are serious about a life of prayer and overcoming your anxiety, you must put off the habits of worrying or trying to retain control of some parts of your life. You must decide to cast all your cares onto the Lord. As you put your total trust in Christ, you will begin to discover that the ever presence of God is the strength and stability of your life. o
Rev. Mark J. Crocco is pastor of Belcroft Bible Church, 13000 Beechtree Lane, Bowie, MD 20715.