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Keeping anxiety under control

28/06/2009 00:00:00 Pastor Dan Mdluli

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Life’s challenges, more often than not, make many a pilgrim victims of neurotic tendencies. While psychologists agree that mild anxiety is expected in life, they advise against an anxiety that leads to stress and the pressing of panic buttons.

The anxiety that leads to stress is the kind that the Bible warns against.
It is the kind of anxiety that is indicative of a loss of trust in the Provident God. Commenting on the various types of anxiety, Gary R. Collins, in his book Christian Counselling, says: “Normal anxiety comes to all of us at times, usually when there is some real threat or situational danger.

Most often, this anxiety is proportional to the danger (the greater the threat the greater the anxiety). It is anxiety that can be recognized, managed, and reduced, especially when circumstances change.” Then he discusses another type of anxiety, the neurotic anxiety, which he says, “involves intense exaggerated feelings of helplessness and dread even when the danger is mild or nonexistent” (pg. 78).

A sense of anxiety filled Abraham when he led his promised son on a pilgrimage to Mount Moriah. God had instructed him to sacrifice his son Isaac. With an expected degree of anxiety, Abraham obediently took off with both his trusted servant and his son.
However, his anxiety was under control. It did not block his vision of a God who provides for His children when all human effort has come to nought (Gen. 22:8). Indeed moments of anxiety require the faithful to take responsibility and meet the crucibles of life head on. Writing to the church in Philippi from prison, the Apostle Paul says: “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6).

Elsewhere Ellen White, speaking to despairing leadership as a result of developmental challenges the young denomination was facing in the late 1800s, says: “With Christ our leader, we have no reason to fear for the future lest we forget how the Lord has led us in the past.”
The Bible does not promise a life of ease for the faithful, and this has been the trend since sin interrupted the plan God had for His created beings. ‘Thorns and thistles’ of this life take the shape of any crucible that has attended the path of pilgrims en route to eternity future. At the height of the pain that came as a result of ‘a thorn’ that was piercing his flesh, the Apostle Paul pleaded with God for its removal.

But in response, God only promised the sufficiency of His grace, which empowers the weak to withstand the might of those crucibles (2 Cor. 12:7-9). The first three chapters of the book of Revelation discuss how Jesus fulfils the comforting promise he made to his disciples when he left them on Mount Olives. After sensing the depth of their anxiety for his leaving, he assured them of the permanence of his presence in these words: “Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” (Matt. 28:20). And one cannot fault the disciples for exhibiting this unhealthy kind of anxiety. The times they lived in were very bad. Their choice of embracing the teachings of Jesus over Judaism did not make things any easier for them. Persecutions of sorts were lined up for them, and that reality overwhelmed their faith.

And Jesus himself had not made things any easier when he said: “And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles” (Matt. 10:18).
The future looked intimidating indeed. And speaking of that future, John the Revelator says: “The dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 12:17).

As potential bearers of the testimony of Jesus in a world that stood militant against God’s order, the disciples needed the assurance of a divine presence throughout the testing times. At the height of the persecution that landed John on the Island of Patmos, Jesus proved his faithfulness to that covenantal promise of Matthew 28 by walking in their midst in the symbolism of the Seven Churches of the province of Asia (Rev. 1:13). All anxiety vanishes into thin air when the eye of faith catches the vision of Jesus Christ as the Alpha and Omega of life’s challenges.

This vision of the resurrected Christ walking among the ‘lampstands’ must give his children the courage to stand against besetting crucibles of life. Needing only five dollars to take her to a time when her publishers would pay her, the blind Fanny J. Crosby prayed for divine intervention. As always, by divine providence someone came by and gave her the five dollars. Out of that experience, she penned the words of the song All the Way My Saviour Leads Me.

The last stanza of that song goes: “All the way my Saviour leads me; Cheers each winding path I tread; Gives me peace for every trial, feeds me with the living bread; Though my weary steps may falter; And my soul athirst may be, gushing from the Rock before me, lo a spring of joy I see.”