The Lies of Anxiety

Feeling anxious? Check out - 8 Arguments For Why You Should Be Anxious Today and How the Bible Responds by Justin Taylor

An important lesson of the Christian life is that the heart of the battle is a fight not between abstract commands (do this! don’t do that!) but rather arguments. Unbelief does not just offer dictates; it offers reasons why we don’t need to trust the Lord. And to counter that, gospel-flavored belief argues with our unbelief. In other words, it provides reasons for why trusting the Lord is always the good and wise things to do.

Here are some notes on how this might work with the temptation to fret and worry and be anxious and unsettled, rather than acting in joyful, confident, restful faith. I’ve included the argument of unbelief, a Scripture passage, and some observations on how the argument works.

1. ANXIETY IS WORTH IT BECAUSE GOD IS TOO FAR AWAY TO HEAR MY NEEDS.

Philippians 4:5-6: ”The Lord is at hand; [therefore] do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

• The truth: “The Lord is at hand”
• What is prohibited as a result: “do not be anxious about anything”
• The alternative that is prescribed as a result: “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God [i.e., the Lord who is near to hear and to help].”

2. ANXIETY IS WORTH IT BECAUSE GOD DOES NOT CARE FOR ME AND I NEED TO GET MYSELF OUT OF THIS HUMILIATING STAGE OF LIFE.

1 Peter 5:6-7: Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

• The truth: God cares for me.
• The command: I am to humble myself.
• How? By casting all of my anxieties on him.
• A corollary: Carrying rather than casting my anxieties is an expression of pride.

3. ANXIETY IS WORTH IT BECAUSE IF MY PROBLEMS AREN’T SOLVED I COULD DIE.

Matthew 6:25: “Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”

• You still have eternal life even if you have no food
• You will still have a resurrection body even if you are physically deprived.
• Even if your struggle ends in death you will not have lost the most important things; therefore, don’t spend your time being anxious about lesser things.

4. ANXIETY IS WORTH IT BECAUSE I HAVE NO PRACTICAL EVIDENCE IN THE WORLD THAT GOD VALUES ME OR WILL TAKE CARE OF ME. 

Matthew 6:26, 28-30: “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? . . . And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?”

• God values the birds and the grass, which he richly provides for and adorns.
• God values me much more than the birds and the grass.
• Therefore, as an argument from the lesser to the greater, obviously he will be even more invested in providing for all of my needs.

5. ANXIETY IS WORTH IT BECAUSE OF HOW MUCH IT HELPS MY LIFE.

Matthew 6:27: ”Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” [Answer: no one.]

• The truth: Anxiety can’t add a single hour to my life.
• Presupposition: I shouldn’t spend my time on pointless activities that have no benefits.
• Result: I shouldn’t be anxious.

6. ANXIETY IS WORTH IT BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE IS GOING TO LOOK OUT FOR MY NEEDS.

Matthew 6:31, 33: “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For . . . your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

• The truth: God knows I have needs for food, drink, clothing
• The implication: When God knows a need and he loves the needy he is glad to be the supplier of the need.
• The result: My focus can be on God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, knowing that my needs will be taken care of.

7. ANXIETY IS WORTH IT; AFTER ALL, EVERYONE DOES IT AND IT SEEMS TO WORK FOR THEM.

Matthew 6:31-32: “Do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things. . . .”

• The truth: Unbelievers are anxious about how their needs are going to be met.
• Presupposition: Christians are not to act like unbelievers.
• Result: We should not be anxious like the world is anxious.

8. ANXIETY IS WORTH IT BECAUSE SO MANY TROUBLES ARE COMING TO ME IN THE FUTURE IF I DON’T WORRY ABOUT THEM NOW.

Matthew 6:34: “Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

• Tomorrow is going to do just fine without your help, but thanks anyway.

No Worries

From Radio Free Babylon
(Click on image to enlarge)

How To Fret

Do you worry? Do you fret? That's a little like asking "Do you breathe?" Since we all do it, here's a good piece by Jonathan Parnell at Desiring God- Three Facts For Your Fret:

We tend to fret.

It is a fact about creatures that we are derivative beings who can’t ultimately control the world around us. We have questions about whether we should do this or that, and about what might happen if we do this or that, which quickly turns into worries about how badly this or that might turn out. Before long, we’re in the storm of outright anxiety. It begins to bear down on us with hurricane-force winds — all the facts and would-be’s, the haywire of things gone sideways, and our incapacity to determine results. What are we supposed to do?

Remember God. That is what we are supposed to do. We remember that these worries are as ancient as our earliest forefathers, and that God has been in the business of answering them since the beginning, and better, that the way he answers them is not by ignoring the complexity, but by stepping into it. In short, we should know we’re not alone, that God hears, and that God works in the middle of our mess.

1. You’re Not Alone

The psalms are incomparable in making this point. Not only do they show us again and again that God cares, but they, in one sense, come alongside us to feel what we feel. We can forget sometimes that the psalmists were real people like us, and that their situations were as literal as anything we’d experience. We shouldn’t lose that in the poetry. When David says, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil” (Psalm 23:4), we should remember that actual enemies were trying to kill him. Now, that’s a beautiful metaphor — the valley and the shadow and all that — but it works only because death was seriously all around him.

The psalms are real life, and that’s why they help us. Whatever circumstances we are going through, as different as they might be from the psalmist’s so many years ago, there are wonderful similarities. Psalm 37 stands out.

The psalm opens: “Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers!” (Psalm 37:1). Again, “Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil” (Psalm 37:8). The point is that we don’t worry. Granted, there are various reasons for why any of God’s people might worry over the course of centuries, but the command not to worry and the basis of not worrying are the same. Whatever worries we have, we are not alone. Our brothers and sisters have been there.

2. God Hears You

A psalmist is writing about fret, which means it’s happened before. But also, and more specifically, the psalmist is exhorting God’s people about fret, which means God knows what’s going on. God isn’t a stranger to this. He has heard his people then, and he hears us now.

The psalms as a whole make this wonderfully clear. It is even thematic, as I think we can see in the first few psalms. What begins to stand out when we read the first handful together is that David has this unremitting confidence in God’s nearness — that God listens to him and cares. “I cried aloud the the Lᴏʀᴅ, and he answered me from his holy hill” (Psalm 3:4); “The Lᴏʀᴅ has set apart the godly for himself; the Lᴏʀᴅ hears when I call to him” (Psalm 4:1, 3); “O Lᴏʀᴅ, in the morning you hear my voice” (Psalm 5:3); “The Lᴏʀᴅ has heard the sound of my weeping. The Lᴏʀᴅ has heard my plea; the Lᴏʀᴅ accepts my prayer” (Psalm 6:8–9).

This is the great reminder that even in the thick of our fret, we never find God “indifferent or helpless or caught by surprise.” And that even when it seems like no one else hears, that our friends have all deserted us, we can turn the page with David to Psalm 38:9, “O Lord, all my longing is before you; my sighing is not hidden from you.” God hears, always.