Dealing With Anxiety

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It is written:

Psalm 94:19-In the multitude of my anxieties within me, Your comforts delight my soul.

And:

Psalm 139:23-Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties;

Anxiety can be crippling.

The fear of the nameless dread; the terror by day; the haunting fear of night; the formless pit of the unexpected call that someone has died….

On and on the list could go.

One of the things I love the most about the Word of God is that it teaches us the best way to deal with anxiety. This is especially true from Psalms.

Let me share some things with you that I have learned from Psalms especially in dealing with anxiety.

First, God knows where you are and what you are going through. The beauty of Psalm 139 assures us of this. God’s omniscience (all-knowingness), His omnipresence (being in all places at once), omnipotence (all-powerfulness), and omnibenevolence (all-goodness) are painted clearly for us in this Psalm. David finds help for his anxieties in that!

Doesn’t it help to know that the Creator of the universe knows what we are facing, and what we will face, and has promised to stay with us through all of it?

I remember once when I was a kid, our school bud had a fire drill. There was an older boy who was going to “get me” when we got off the bus. He towered probably half a foot over me, and I was ready to get pulverized, when all of a sudden another window on the bus opened and my older brother pointed at the guy and said:

“Don’t.”

Thank God, the guy didn’t!

There are benefits to having an older brother, and I am blessed to have the best one someone could hope for.

Jesus is called our older brother in the Word of God (Hebrews 2:11-12), and it is a comfort to know He is with me.

Second, the comforts of God provide solace for us in the multitude of our anxieties. In Psalm 94:1-10, the psalmist remembers that the psalmist is well-aware of the work of the unrighteousness and the wickedness of those who hate God’s people. He even knows their thoughts (Psalm 94:11)! Then the psalmist reflects on the fact that God will act and work in the world at the right time (Psalm 94:12-16).

I don’t know about you, but that is a hard one for me to remember. One night in jail ministry, we had a discussion about the timing of God and the problem of evil. Many atheists will say that the existence of evil disproves the existence of God. However, it actually affirms His existence (how can you have something that is really identifiable as being evil without first having a standard of goodness by which the evil is judged, and that leads to the existence of the Creator, the moral Lawgiver)!

What the problem of evil shows is that God is not working every way we would like to see and in the timeframe we would like. Yet that’s the thing about God: He has Divine prerogative to work when He knows is the right time).

Just because evil seems to be triumphing right now, doesn’t mean that it always will.

Not only that, but he remembers that God is his current help and strength (Psalm 94:17), and even if there are times when the psalmist falls into sin or stumbles in doubt, God will still be faithful (Psalm 94:18). Sadly, the wicked will use many things to try and destroy those who are living for God-even the law of the land (Psalm 94:20-23); yet God will overcome them in the end and His people will be vindicated!

I don’t know about you, but that gives me a lot of hope and help in dealing with my anxiety.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen.