Steps to calm an anxious heart

We live in challenging times, and it doesn’t appear to be changing  anytime soon. It’s easy to feel your anxiety rising. Three times in the the 37th Psalm we’re reminded to “not worry” (37:1, 7). But God doesn’t leave us there. He gives four steps to calm an anxious heart.

Trust in the Lord (37:3)

Perhaps the best-known Bible verse about trusting God is found in Proverbs 3:5. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” Eugene Peterson rendered that verse, “Trust GOD from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own.” The anxious person tries to figure it out on his own, and he knows he doesn’t have the resources.
This is especially evident when we worry about others. Our relationships with our family members are a good example. Parents are prone to worry about their children’s future. A sister worries about her brother’s drug addiction. A middle-aged woman worries about her aging parents’ failing health. When we deal with others’ choices, the outcome is outside of our control because their will is their own. We cannot make them want what they don’t want for themselves. We can instruct and discipline our children. We can grieve over our siblings’ destructive choices. We can lovingly share our concerns with our parents. But in all of these relationships, we cannot ultimately control their will. It is outside the realm of our ability; their future is outside of our field of vision. So, we worry. To ultimately gain victory over this type of anxiety, you will need to acknowledge that your resources are limited and trust in the one whose resources are not.

The depth of the trust is often tied to the value of the relationship.

Most of us only trust those with whom we have a meaningful relationship. For instance, if I was looking for someone to hold $1,000 for me while I went away, I would be most confident in the person I knew the best. My ability to trust you (or not) is clearly tied to my knowledge of you, to how well I know your character, intentions, and purposes. It’s the same way in our relationship with God. If you are not growing in your knowledge of him who saved you, you will struggle to trust him, and you will succumb again to those feelings of anxiety.
A friend of our family is fond of saying, ‘If you don’t see God as good and loving, you will not be comforted by his sovereignty.” Just because the Bible declares that God is in control doesn’t mean that I’ll trust him. Jesus understood this. He found comfort in trusting his heavenly Father with his future because he had grown in his understanding of his Father’s love (Jn. 15:9). If you do not do the same, you will struggle to trust God with the things you value the most. You will attempt to guard them yourself, and in so doing the habit of worrying will return. Trusting God is essential to overcoming worry, and knowing God well is the prerequisite to trusting him completely.

Delight yourself in the Lord (37:4)

C.S. Lewis embraced atheism at the age of 15.  Though raised in a church-going family, he claimed his separation from religion started when he began to see it all as “chore and duty.” This is what makes the earlier statement by Lewis so powerful. He discovered that the pursuit of God was worthy of being desired, not simply obligatory. In Psalm 37 King David says the same thing: delight yourself in the Lord. The translators chose the word delight to describe a Hebrew word that means “soft and delicate.” It came to mean a life of luxury and enjoyment.  Earlier in the Psalms, David ponders delighting in the Lord with eternity in view. He writes, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” This is what John Piper intends when he changes one word in the Westminster Confession. The 400-year-old document read: “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” But Piper thought it was clearer this way: “The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever.” I agree with Piper. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied with him.

Finding your delight in the Lord is essential to overcoming anxiety.

Finding your delight in the Lord is essential to overcoming anxiety. We tend to be very one-dimensional in our thinking. The more we fixate on relief from anxiety, the more anxious we tend to become. The cares of this world can seem overwhelming; what joy you have will dissipate. But when you begin to find your delight in the Lord, joy will return, and worry will be crowded out. It’s hard to be joyful and anxious at the same time. There’s a promise connected with the command to delight in the Lord. The text says, “And he will give you the desires of your heart” (37:4). The word desires could be understood as “requests” or “petitions.” When we delight in the Lord, we have turned our desires into prayers. Imagine if each time your heart grew anxious you interpreted it as a signal to bring a prayer request to the Lord. You wouldn’t have time to worry. You would be taking your burden to the Lord and leaving it there. When we focus our attention on the Lord like that, we actually end up getting what we desire the peace of God.

Commit everything you do to the Lord (37:5)

One summer, when I was child, my family was preparing to go on our summer vacation. Whenever we would take an extended trip, it was my father’s habit to pray for safety before we would leave the driveway. As the car came to a stop at the end of our long, gravel lane, my dad asked for a volunteer to pray. My hand was the first one up, so I was granted the responsibility of praying for God’s mercies. My parents recall that the bulk of my prayer was spent asking God that we not have an accident on the bridge that was about a half a mile from our home. I’m sure my parents smiled. My dad would later say that while he didn’t know what would happen on the trip, he was pretty certain there wouldn’t be an accident on the bridge. Oh, the power of a seven year-olds prayer.

God is concerned about the smallest details, and he is capable of handling the largest difficulties.

When our text says to commit everything to the Lord, it is describing a way, a path, a journey. Kind of like a family vacation, only more like a lifetime than a week. What if I had retained my seven-year-old perspective on prayer throughout my lifetime? What if each morning I paused to commit everything to the Lord for that day’s journey? What if I maintained that perspective on prayer throughout the day? What if you did? Perhaps this is what the Bible means when it says, “Pray without ceasing.” It’s really hard to keep worrying when you’re praying without ceasing. This is what prompted William James to say, “The sovereign cure for worry is prayer.”
Commit everything to the Lord. He is concerned about the smallest details, and he is capable of handling the largest difficulties.

Be still in the presence of the Lord (37:7)

When we’re anxious, it’s hard to be still. We think if we work harder relief from the anxiety will come. But we accomplish one task, only to grow anxious about another. We run faster, only to discover our anxious thoughts were waiting of us at the next destination. We cannot outwork nor outrun our anxious thoughts. This prompted King David to write: “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently on him” (Ps. 37:7). Later in the Psalms God speaks in the first person: “Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” The Bible ties our ability to be still and wait to what God has done and will do.

Worry is a cycle of inefficient thoughts whirling around a center of fear.

Corrie Ten Boom was born in the Netherlands. Her family secretly housed Jews during the Holocaust. Their act of courage would be rewarded with sentences to Nazi prison camps.  Corrie and her sister spent years in the prison at Ravensbrück. I’ve walked the stone pavers at Ravensbrück, laid down by the bleeding hands of women and children. Fresh cut flowers now pour forth from the incinerators, where most prisoners left the facility in the form of smoke and ash. While the barracks are no longer there, the footprints of the foundations serve as a memorial to where thousands would spend their final days. It’s hard to imagine living in an environment that must have run rampant with fear and anxiety. Rape and abuse were prevalent; hard labor the only event of the day; death your only escape. Still, this environment would inspire Corrie Ten Boom to write: “Worry is a cycle of inefficient thoughts whirling around a center of fear.”
That’s an insightful statement worth reading again. Worry is a cycle of inefficient thoughts whirling around a center of fear. In the whirling thoughts of worry, it can be difficult to discern what we fear. Our thoughts are too busy. Ultimately, it’s not about your busyness, it’s about God’s faithfulness. It’s not about what you do, it’s about what he’s done.
 

Phil Moser is a pastor and author of the Biblical Strategies series.  and 4M Training for Men. This post is taken from his book Safe in the Storm: biblical strategies for overcoming anxiety. His books are available on Amazon and at biblicalstrategies.com

 
This post is taken from his book Safe in the Storm: biblical strategies for overcoming anxiety. Phil’s books are available on Amazon and at biblicalstrategies.com