When You Battle Anxiety

Sometimes God calms the storm.

He excises the malignant cancer, transfers the cranky boss, replenishes the diminishing funds. The breath of heaven blows, the clouds scatter, and the winter sky becomes a springtime blue. Sometimes he calms the storm.

Other times, however, he chooses to calm the child.

Rather than quiet the tempest, he stills the sailor. Rather than remove the disease, he removes the fear. Rather than lift the debt, he lifts the doubt. The storm still brews, the wind still blows, but the child no longer frets; he trusts. He may even snooze.

Anxiety happens when we think the world is spinning out of control. The untruth deceives us into believing that the problem has no solution. The consequential false narrative says, “My life is nothing but a maelstrom of messes.” An overreaction chimes in with a Chicken Little squawk of, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”

Be on the alert for this downward spiral. Disarm these thoughts the moment they begin to grouse. Rather than heed them, heed him. Anxiety is calmed when we talk to the one in charge.

No storm ever hit harder than the one that raged through Gethsemane’s garden. And no prayer was ever prayed with more passion than the one Jesus prayed on the eve of his death. “Can you calm the storm?” Jesus asked. God did for Moses. God did for Daniel. God would do so for Paul and Silas. Could he not do the same for his own Son?

Of course he could. But he chose not to. The cross was part of God’s plan to redeem his children. God did not calm the storm. But our Father calmed his Son. And Jesus marched to Calvary in peace. A heaven-sent, illogical, stare-death-in-the-face-with-a-smile peace.

I pray God calms your storm. If he does not, may he calm you. And may you find the “peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” (Philippians 4:7 ESV).

Prayer

Dear God, You have promised perfect peace to those who focus on you. When I battle anxiety, help me keep my thoughts on you. Help me uproot the weed of anxiety and replant with your joy.