Dealing with Anxiety

I want to begin by talking about one of the root causes of aniexty, uncertainty:

• Uncertainty connected with your job.
  • You don't know what mood your boss will be from day to day
  • You don't know if your job is secure.
  • An unexpected situation arises, and you are unsure how to handle it.
• Uncertainty connected to your health.
  • You're waiting on the test results. 
  • Your family has a hisgtory of cancer, and you felt something abnormal in your body. 
• Uncertainty connected to relationships.
  • When you were a teenager, wondering if your crush liked you. 
  • Some people are uncertian if their wife/husband is faithful. 
  • Is your wife/husband going to leave you?
  • The health of your family.  
• Uncertainty is connected to the state of our nation. 
  • The economy.
  • Politics. 

My point here is not to give an exhausted list of all the things that cfause anxiety. Instead, I want to point out, most likely, the cause of our anxiety is connected to uncertainty in some respect. 

It could be one of the areas I just mentioned; maybe only you know about it. 

But the feeling anxious is a universal experience. 

We will all feel the burden of Anxiety in our life. We will all experience sleepless nights and loss of appetite due to situations that are out of our control. 

Today, I want to give you a 3 step process of how to deal with anxiety. 

Say it to the Lord

When you read the Psalms, you will notice how often the writers list things that are troubling them., 

They will say things like: 

• • My friends have forsaken me. 
  • My enemies have mocked me.
  • My health has failed me.
  • My nation is going in the wrong direction.

The writer will give a list of complaints to the Lord. An excellent example of this is Psalm 55

Psalms 55:1-5 Give ear to my prayer, O God; and hide not thyself from my supplication.² Attend unto me, and hear me: I mourn in my complaint, and make a noise;³ Because of the voice of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked: for they cast iniquity upon me, and in wrath they hate me.⁴ My heart is sore pained within me: and the terrors of death are fallen upon me.⁵ Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me.

What the Psalmist is doing is listing his complaints to God. He's saying, "God, here's what's bothering me."

Later, he goes on to say that what hurt him the most was that one of his friends was leading the charge against him. 

Psalms 55:12 For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I cfould have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him:

I hope no one herfe ever experience's a close friend betraying you. As we see in our text, it can cause great anxiety. 

Notice he natural response to anxiety: he wants to escape!

Psalms 55:5-8 ⁵ Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me.⁶ And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest.⁷ Lo, then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness. Selah.⁸ I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest.

 

The most common source of anxiety is uncertainty, and the most common way to deal with anxiety is uncertainty, and the most commo way to deal with anxiety is uncertainty, and the most common way to deal with anxiety is escape. David wanted to run away. We do the same. 

• Ways people try to escape
  • Alcohol/Drugs
  • Shopping
  • Food
  • Leaving

The world offers an escape. It says, do you feel uncomfortable? Leave.

Things get complicated, go. 

Don't deal with your problems; watch 7 hours of Netflix instead. 

When we feel burdened by anxiety, our first response is to run to God and say, "get me out!" 

• Get me our of this job.
• Get me out of this situation.
• Get me out of this marriage. 

But most of the time, God will say to us, "I'm not going to get you out, I'm going to get you through."

I'm going to get you through this season of your life. SO, if God's not going to get you out, what should we do?

Here the writer does what we should do; he takes his complaints to the Lord. He says, "God, here's what's bothering me."

When Anxiety starts to come over us, we should tell the Lord the things that are borthering us. 

• God, I feel unappreciated. 
• God, I feel abandoned. 
• God, my boss, is being mean at work; I don't know what to do. 
• God, I'm concerned about the decisions my kids are making. 

Recap

The first step is to say it to the Lord, God, here's what's bothering me: then we leave it with the Lord. 

We leave it with the Lord. 

Psalms 55:22 Cath thy burder upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. 

Jesus is our burden bearer; we come to Him with our anxieties and leave them with Him. 

It doesn't do us any good to go to God with our burdens and pick them right back up when we're through praying. 

Once we have said it to the Lord, we should leave it with Him. What does that look like?

Psalms 55:22-23 ²² Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.²³ But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction: bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days; but I will trust in thee.

The writer again talks about what's causing him anxiety, but he ends by saying, "I will trust in Thee."

In other words, "God, here's what I would do if I were you, but I trust Your wisdom."

He says, "hey, if it were me, I would send them down to the pit, but it's up to you." 

He's leaving the results to God. 

I know how I would like things to go, and I pray for that, but ultimately, I trust God.

This means I trust that he knows what's best and that whatever He chooses to do will be for my good. 

Leaving our burdens with God means trusting God with our burdens.

He may choose to do something that we may not like or understand, but since He is good, we trust Him. 

We give Him the responsibility for our burdens. That is, our burdens belong to God; this means I can do what He pleases.

Recap. 

How to deal with anxiety. 

1. We say it to the Lord; we go to GOd with what's bothering us. 
2. We leave it with the Lord; that is, we put what's bothering us in His hands. 
3. We submit to the Lord.

Submit to the Lord.

1 Peter 5:6-7⁶ Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:⁷ Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

It's not enough to say it to the Lord; we must leave it with Him. Once we do that, we humble ourselves and obey. 

It will not do us anygood to cast our burdens upon GOd if we don't obey.

It's not that we don't obey, He won't relieve our burdens; no, it's if we don't obey, we won't give God our burdens. 

This brings us to another cause of anxiety, disobedience. 

I'm not saying that every time you feel anxious, it's because of disobedience. 

But I am saying that sometimes you experience anxiety because you've disobeyed. 

Leaving my burden with God means I will obey His voice because I trust Him. 

The question is do you trust God enough to leave your kids with Him? If the answer is yes, you will follow godly principles for raising your kids, thus relieving your burden of anxiety concerning your kids. 

I'm not saying that you will never experience anxiety again regarding parenting. 

When you do: 

• You are to say to God, which means we tell God the things that are causing us anxiety. 
• Then we leave it with God; that is, we put whatever is bothering us into His hands. 
• Then we submit to God by obeying. In other words, we do what GOd says concerning our current situation. 

We can apply these steps to whatever situation we feel anxious about.