Here are three steps you can take to overcome anxiety:
1) List your worries. For one week, make a list of the things you worry about most. Children? Health? Money? Marriage? Job? These aren’t one-time worries that come and go quickly. They’re things that make you ‘perpetually uneasy’ (Matthew 6:25 AMP), so begin to review them. Ask yourself how many of them have actually turned into reality? Charles Spurgeon said, ‘Our worst misfortunes never happen…most of our miseries lie in anticipation.’
2) Analyse them. You’ll detect recurring areas of preoccupation that may become obsessions: what people think of you; the fact that heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s run in your family; the fear that you won’t have enough to live on when you get old. Identify each fear and pray specifically about it.
3) Live in today. God has promised to meet your needs daily, not weekly or annually. He’ll give you what you need – when you need it! ‘Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need’ (Hebrews 4:16 NKJV).
The old hymn goes: ‘Not so in haste my heart! Have faith in God, and wait; although He lingers long, He never comes too late.’
When the word ‘worry’ is mentioned in the Bible, it’s almost always following the words ‘do not’. If ‘worry’ features in your vocabulary, it should be as part of God’s words to you: ‘do not worry’.
Philippians 4:6-7 (NIV 2011 Edition) says to you, ‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer…present your requests to God. And the peace of God…will guard your hearts.’
