06-28-13 Anxiety - Over-Rated Fear

Philippians 4:6,7 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

My husband and I saw a movie the other day called 'After Earth'. How many of you have had the Lord speak to you out of the blue from a source you were previously unaware of?

Well the quote went like this:

"Fear is not real. The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist. That is near insanity. Do not misunderstand me, danger is very real, but fear is a choice. We are all telling ourselves a story and that day mine changed."

I heard that one 'definition' of fear is 'False Evidence Appearing Real'. Sometimes we grab hold of that false evidence thinking it's real or is going to become real in our lives and wow, does does that produce some anxiety or what?  Or better yet, we don't even have the evidence yet and we're already knowing 'for certain' that a certain thing is going to happen'. REALLY?? 

Now, there is healthy fear. I'm not talking about that. Healthy fear is common sense - don't put your hand on a hot stove burner - don't run after parked cars - things like that. Things that will get you hurt - pretty badly. Fear tells us that there is something wrong. 

So, even unhealthy fear at first seems to be ok. If we're afraid of spiders and one comes down a wall - our first reaction can fear - but what do we do after that first reaction is crucial to what transpires inside of us afterwards.

If the spider happens to be a brown recluse or an overly aggressive animal comes at us, then it can hurt us. If we have a fear of these hurting us, it produces adrenaline and lets off phermones that sometimes certain animals can sense and then they advance. We don't really know if the animal is going to hurt us or the spider, but we envision it happening in the near future - in our imaginations - it's almost a done deal when we allow that fear to overcome us. We may freeze - or we may fight - or we may run. Maybe not the greatest example, but I think it proves the point.

The danger is real, but to allow the fear to get to the point of panic and anxiety is really our choice. Psalm 27 is a great Psalm for this... 

"The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall. Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident."

We can change our focus - ground ourselves - let Jesus be our 'Center'. We can learn to stop, focus on Jesus and the Holy Spirit's strength within us. 'Take a knee'... focus on slowing down our breathing, smelling the Spirit around us, allowing the Lord's peace and power to permeate our being. James 4:6-8 says, "But He gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: 'God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble. Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners and purify your hearts you double-minded."

I quoted that scripture in full because it all goes together. If we are proud and will not humble ourselves and focus on Him, submitting ourselves to Him, we are in essence allowing fear to rule over us. But if we humble ourselves before Him- bowing before the Lord of Hosts, focusing on His words of boldness that He is trying to get through to us, looking into His eyes and receiving His strength, submitting our anxieties, cares, fears to Him - the Lord Jesus rules over us and in our hearts becomes our Master once again.  We feel the boldness of God and His love for us enter into that fearful place and banish the fear - the anxiety flees from His presence. But we must believe and not be double-minded. That's the hard part.... but it's a journey.  

We can do this - with God's help. We do NOT have to live under anxiety and fear. I believe I see a crack in the wall in many of our lives regarding this. A small crack is all that's needed in order for the breakthrough to start.

God Bless.... Be strong and Courageous... Do not fear.... The Lord your God is with you wherever you go!

God of Angel Armies - Chris Tomlin (I know... I played this one before, but...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzIABaImiK4

06-26-13 Don't Be Anxious???

Matthew 6:31-34 "Do not be anxious then, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'With what shall we clothe ourselves?' "For all these things the Gentiles eagerly seek; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you. "Therefore do not be anxious for tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Matthew 6:27 "And which of you by being anxious can add a single cubit to his life's span?"

Matthew 11:28-30 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. "Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. "For My yoke is easy, and My load is light."

Seems like Matthew records a few things Jesus had said about anxiety...  

The first set of verses literally say, "DO NOT BE ANXIOUS"... yeah, ok - nice. But how? Well, look what we worry about or fear - not having enough of something.  God knows what we need and He is Jehovah-Jireh - our Provider. The only pre-requisite is that we seek Him and His righteousness for our lives. Basically, He's saying, "Why worry about the what if's or how's or whatever's in the future. Stay in the present." And the future doesn't have to be years or days or months down the road, it could be an hour from now.  He's saying LIVE IN THE PRESENT! 

The second set of verses say that we can't usually fix what we're worrying or fearful or anxious about, so why give it more power over ourselves. The Serenity Prayer... God, grant me the SERENITY to ACCEPT THE THINGS I CANNOT CHANGE... We can ask God to change them, but He usually let's us know the things we can change, whether by conviction or that still, small voice, or sometimes He even does a little tough love to get us to see things. As in pulling the rug out from under us and saying, "oh, I'm sorry - you were standing on that, but it really needs washed."  Well, maybe not in those terms ;)

The third set of verses for most of us is the hardest. Coming to Jesus and letting Him take our care and worries and exchanging them for His rest. Anxiety makes us hyper-vigilant and always on guard. No wonder we can't rest, we're always looking around for what needs to be done or what we haven't done or what we have done or what's going to happen if we don't do something.  

Jesus says, 'Please, my little lambs, come to Me. Let me hold you in my arms and give you rest. I'm not going to put any demands on you that you can't handle - those you do well enough yourself. Let me restore you to child-like faith and trust in Me and My ability and power to take care of you. I won't let you go.'

Rest - Downhere

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaxwhhNxBi8

06-25-13 Anxiety

Psalm 56:3 "When I am afraid, I will put my trust in Thee."

Psalm 121:1-2 "I Will lift up my eyes to the mountains; From whence shall my help come? My help comes from the LORD, Who made heaven and earth."

Psalm 23:4 "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me."

Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight."

Psalm 46:10 "Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

First of all sorry for my brief respite from blogging.  I was under the weather - or in the the weather, because it felt like a tornado ran through me.  I'm back now :)  So, I hope you are also.

No matter how you look at - straight in the eye, sideways, front or back - anxiety is a monster worse than the one that used to live under my bed... or was that in my closet... or.....

Seriously, though, in this day and age people are increasing going to see their doctor, counselor, psychologist, psychiatrist for help because anxiety breeds anxiety. The more one dwells on the anxiety, the more anxious one gets and it could very well lead to an all-out panic attack when one cannot function without medical attention or friends praying them through it or relaxation techniques (which, by the way - when you're in the middle of high anxiety or a panic attack most of the time relaxing doesn't even enter one's mind.  So, what to do???

These Psalms talk about three aspects of what to do: 

1) Faith

2) Trust

3) Unwinding

Faith - trusting that the Lord has EVERYTHING under control, even ourselves when we submit our body and soul to him. That even though we can't see the light at the end of the tunnel and everything looks dark - or we're in a valley and all we can see is the valley because of the fog covering the high places where we would like to be - our loving Father is in control.

Trust - The world system goes against the grain on this one. Deception permeates our society - we don't know who to believe - even our friends at times. The One Who wrote the Book of Books (i.e. Bible) - he's the One we can trust, because He's the same yesterday, today and forever. He loves us and demonstrated that by sending Jesus, His only Son to die for us - in our place - for our sins. Then He took the keys of death and hell away from lucifer and now ever lives to intercede for us. He even gave us His Holy Spirit to help lead us and guide us. We can trust him. He will never leave us or forsake us, even when we think we're going over the edge of insanity - He has our shirt-tail.

Unwinding - Why is it we always seem to want to strive towards doing things... busy, busy, busy.  'I'm too busy to do be with my friends' - 'I'm missing dinner and family time because I have too much to do at work' - 'I can't have fun or reat because there is just too much to do and not enough hours in the day' (like more hours would actually help...).  We must learn to rest - a hobby, putting on worship music and being in the presence of the Lord, doing things we've always wanted to do --- ''but didn't have time for''.  We have to make time. The alternative is not pretty.  The alternative is worry, anxiety, panic attacks, being hospitalized (worst case).  We have to make time.

Anxiety is a killer. lucifer comes to steal, kill and destroy. If he can't get to us one way, he always has his hand in his bag of tricks. The object to this is to recognize what triggers our anxiety and work on ways to have faith, trust and unwind with the One who holds us in the palm of His hand.

In The Palm of Your Hand - Alison Krauss

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rz07bR9vs4