Living Without Anxiety

Posted on Dec 18, 2020 Topic : Inspirational/Devotional, Men's Christian Living, Women's Christian Living
Posted by : Stan Jantz

Everyone seems anxious these days. The ongoing election drama is just the latest stress-inducing event of 2020, piled on top of several others: COVID-19, a fragile economy, hurricanes in the South and fires in the West. We just want the year to end, but who’s to say 2021 will be any better? No wonder people are anxious.

As followers of Christ, we’re supposed to know how to deal with anxiety. After all, there’s a verse in Philippians, written by the apostle Paul while he was in prison, that gives this advice:

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. (Philippians 4:6-7)

The first phrase of these two verses is one that’s easy to remember but tricky to implement: “Do not be anxious about anything.” It sounds wonderful, but how do we do that? You can’t reduce Paul’s advice to simply thinking happy thoughts. It takes more than a positive mindset to relieve anxiety.

Recently I read a piece in The New York Times offering several ways to “ward off anxiety.” There was nothing wrong with the advice in the column—take a break from the news, focus on what you can control, stay active, those sorts of practical things—but these are “worldly” solutions. They don’t offer a permanent prescription for anxiety, one based on the power and presence of God.

Thankfully, Paul explains how we can live without anxiety. His prescription is based on two simple but utterly profound spiritual principles.

First, when anxiety begins to emerge, we need to pray and ask God for help, telling him what we’re worried about and always thanking him for his faithfulness, love and mercy. When we pray, we should live with the expectation that God will give us peace—not as the world gives, but as Jesus gives when he says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27). Anxiety breeds fear; Jesus conquers our fear and brings peace to our hearts.

The second spiritual principle for living without anxiety has to do with God’s transcendence. The everyday definition of transcend is “to rise above or go beyond.” That begins to capture the idea. We can have a peace that rises above the cares of the world. But there’s more to it when you think about God’s transcendence.

When we say God is transcendent, we mean he is above and independent of the material world he made. He is quite literally above nature, which is to say he is supernatural. And yet God is also immanent, which means he indwells all that he made, especially those he made in his image.

This is what Paul is getting at when he says, “The Lord is near” in the verse immediately preceding the phrase, “Do not be anxious about anything.” Most Bible translations take “near” to mean that God is coming soon. But I also like the meaning of God being near because of the way he supernaturally indwells us through the power of the Holy Spirit, who is the presence of Christ in our lives.

Only recently have I come to grasp the enormous significant of this reality. I am not merely a physical being living in a material world. As a child of God, I am a spiritual person indwelled by God, which means I have real-time access to the supernatural life of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This also means I have the supernatural power to live without anxiety.

Living without anxiety is not about using practical techniques. It’s about trusting Jesus and meeting him in real time. Living without anxiety is going about your day in a conscious awareness of the presence of Jesus in your life. This isn’t abstract. It’s real. And it’s the way you and I were made to live, right her and right now.