Dealing with Anxiety and Worries

By Simon Akpaasou Blog - January 25, 2020

YOU ARE SICK…

If you are reading this line it means you understand “that nobody ever die of insort”

and you didn’t close the brief in anger. I would explain the very insulting opening paragraph with total faith that you would have been cured of your ailment when you are done reading this brief (yet another insort) but first, let me tell you about my week

I work with a company where nobody gives a flying donkey how many years of experience you have. They’d give you projects that require a decent number of years of experience & expertise and budgets to the tune of millions of Naira and then you are required to build castles in the sky. When you complain that it (building a castle in the sky) isn’t realistic they’d tell you and prove to you that it has been done before (Stay with me I am getting somewhere). A nice way to describe my first project is -It failed. All the millions of Naira invested entered the bush. I was told to repeat the same project with double the budget and finally, this time after so much effort, close monitoring, more money at my disposal and with experience from the previous project under my belt -The project failed, AGAIN (you can imagine what this did to my confidence). Truth be told, I had already seen signs that it was going to fail about 3 days to execution and so through out the days leading up to the execution your favorite happy-go-blessed, child of God who puts all his trust in Jesus was sick with worry, essentially worried SICK. I could barely barely feel the presence of God, I was tempted to think I was alone. All these because I was worried sick for the investment I was about to set ablaze. In subsequent paragraphs you’d see how anxiety stunts your spiritual and physical growth leaving you vulnerable to attacks but most importantly you’d see LEARN HOW to live above it

Q: WHAT ARE THE THINGS YOU WORRY ABOUT IN YOUR LIFE ?

A: EVERYTHING

You worried about passing common entrance, Passing high school exams or WAEC, gaining University admission, graduating with a good degree and on time, now you’re probably worried about getting a good job or being retained after your Youth Service, worried that if you shoot your shot, she/he will dodge it or it will bounce off their bullet proof (I am guilty

). For more Advanced Worriers, you are worried that everything is going well

. The truth is, this is not the nature God has given us 2Tim 1:7 and so if we are acting outside the nature it means sickness has set in. The first Paragraph should makes sense now.

You know there are texts in the Bible that were said by men, well this part was said by Jesus Christ. Not that it invalidates the rest of the Bible, but you will have read it from the Horses lips. (If you’re reading this blog you must open your mind to literary devices. Jesus is not a Horse

and every part of the Bible is valid 2Tim 3: 16-17)

THE 5 REASONS GIVEN BY JESUS ON WHY WE SHOULD NOT BE ANXIOUS LUKE 12: 22-28

Life is More than Food and Clothes (Luke 12: 22-23) : Jesus understands that more often than not this is chief of our worries. His response to this is life is greater than food and clothes, these things albeit needed are insignificant. This doesn’t mean you should walk around naked or starve, it simply means give an insignificant part of your thought to it because it is insignificant. Jesus goes further to tell us that we aren’t woke by comparing us to birds that don’t worry but are still clothed and fed. Food and clothes would come. Just be diligent in your work (I added that last line because I know some of you would want to just chill and expect God to send people to bring food and clothes. I refer you to Proverbs 24:33)

2. Anxiety Would not Add a Minute to your Life or Take Away what Bothers You Luke 12: 25-26 : If anything, worry will shorten your life and increase your problems. Do you know Anxiety is actually a disease that people take drugs for? Do you know Anxiety kills people ? Well that is not our story because we are Christians

3. Anxiety is for Unbelievers Luke 12:30 : If you look at it from another angle , worrying is an insult to God, who has said nothing is too hard for him to do Jeremiah 32:27. If God has told you that he works all things for your good Romans 8: 28 and you believe it, why worry ? Everything that is happening to you positive and negative can not happen if God does not permit it. Think about how Joseph’s brothers who sold him into slavery set the stage for him to be Prime Minister of Egypt and save thousands of people including those same brothers from starving to death. We may not understand God’s plan now and that is fine, but what isn’t fine is complaining, grumbling and worrying. That assumes God doesn’t know what he is doing.

4. Worry is a Demonstration of Little FaithLuke 12: 28 : This is actually pretty straight forward. Have you ever entered a taxi and you just can’t relax, you can’t press phone or sleep, because the driver is driving like he is possessed and you don’t trust him. If you have faith in God, you would sleep like Jesus in the face of great danger Luke 8:23. So that is feedback for you (and me quite honestly) to work on your faith – Romans 10: 17

5. God is Providential : The God we serve is not an irresponsible father, he says in Luke 12: 30 he knows that we need these things (Clothes, Food, partner, career, success, phones, cars, houses) and that is why we are anxious about them. His message is I know you need them, but I want you to realize you need Me (Jesus) the most and so seek the Kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you. From this we know that the greatest portion of our thoughts shouold be on how to seek God’s kingdom. God is saying Mind me and I will mind your business. Imagine if Bill Gates said to you, live everyday trying to understand me better and have a relationship with me and I will give you everything you need, would you still worry ? How much more when God has said the same thing to us, where then is the room for Anxiety?

By now if you do not understand how Anxiety can damage yoour spiritual growth, I refer you to Matthew 13 : 7. The seed is the word of God and the thorns are the cares of life that we worry about. The seed can not grow in Anxiety, that would explain why I could barely feel the presence of God at work and why some of us can not grow spiritually.

SOME PEOPLE KEEP LEARNING BUT NEVER COME TO A POINT OF TRUTH

As you read these briefs on a weekly, it is important that you practice what you learn from them.

CONCLUSION: 3 WAYS TO LIVE ABOVE ANXIETY

PRACTICE: Take failure in your stride, chances are if you are about to try something new you’d be worried about failing at it, take failure in your stride and try again. You would build confidence gradually

2. PRAY: In Gethsemane before the beginning of Jesus’s Crucifixion, he was overwhelmed with Anxiety Matthew 26:38 if you read further down that text you would see how he dealt with it. He prayed his soul out such that when it was time, he was able to carry the weight of the sin of the entire human kind on his shoulders. This is the power of prayer

3. PRAISE: The thing about Praise is that it is able to fill you with energy when your bones feel like led. The same energy that you need to come out of the Conundrum that makes you worry and steal your peace Acts 16: 16 -26 , instead of worry Paul and Silas Praised! The power of Praise to set free!

Go Out and Face your Week carrying YOUR ATMOSPHERE OF JESUS