ANXIETY
True peace
does not demand a denial of our emotions and concerns. What is the difference
between godly concern and sinful anxiety? Actually the same Greek word is used
for both, and it is only the context that reveals the difference. The
difference can be seen in these mathematical formulas: Concern + unbelief =
anxiety; Concern + faith = a biblical virtue (1 Corinthians 7:32, 33, 12:25; 2
Corinthians 11:28).
Bill Thrasher
A Journey to Victorious Praying, Moody Publishers, 2003, p. 180.
Anxiety does
not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.
There is no
need for two to care, for God to care and the creature too.
Our
yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost
opportunities which will never return, but God can transform this destructive
anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past sleep,
but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ. Leave the Irreparable Past in His
hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him.
Oh, how great
peace and quietness would he possess who should cut off all vain anxiety and
place all his confidence in God.
Worry, by nature, is the product of a lack of faith and
trust in God.
John MacArthur
Grace
to You, Newsletter, March 2009, © 1969-2008. www.gty.org, Grace
to You. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
For some
reason, we think of doubt and worry as “small” sins. But when a Christian displays unbelief…or an inability to cope with
life, he is saying to the world, “My God cannot be trusted,” and that kind of
disrespect makes one guilty of a fundamental error, the heinous sin of
dishonoring God. That is no small sin.
The Ultimate Priority, Moody Press, 1983, p.
140.
Worry is the
sin of distrusting the promise and providence of God, and yet it is a sin that
Christians commit perhaps more frequently than any other.
John MacArthur
Matthew 1-7, Moody, 1985, p. 419.
Worry is not a trivial sin, because it strikes a blow both at God's love and at
God's integrity. Worry declares our heavenly Father to be untrustworthy in His
Word and His promises. To avow belief in the inerrancy of Scripture and in the
next moment to express worry is to speak out of both sides of our mouths. Worry
shows that we are mastered by our circumstances and by our own finite
perspectives and understanding rather than by God's Word. Worry is therefore
not only debilitating and destructive but maligns and impugns God.
John MacArthur
Matthew 1-7, Moody, 1985, p. 425.
The beginning
of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of
anxiety.
Signs of the Times, Christianity Today, v.
35, n. 1.
Worry is the
antithesis of trust. You simply cannot do both. They are mutually exclusive.
Discipline – The Glad Surrender, Revell,
1982, p. 106.
Future worry
is overwhelming. There’s a reason. We don't have grace today for tomorrow. One
of Satan's simplest tricks and most effective devices is to draw our attention to
things we can do nothing about. There’s nothing worse than a crisis that can’t
be fixed. If our hours are spent with thoughts of tomorrow’s problems, which
are not accessible today and which we know we cannot touch with today’s
resources, we are doomed to worry. And worry wears us out… [Yet] our calling is
today. It’s not that we don’t think of tomorrow, but it must consistently be
filed under “future grace.” The tide of confidence in God's sufficiency must
wash out worry. In fact, it’s a command. “Do not be anxious for tomorrow.” To go there is to disobey a
directive from the One who holds every moment in His hand.
Bill Elliff
The Sufficiency of Daily Grace, Christian Communicators
Worldwide, www.CCWtoday.org. Used by Permission.
It is only
when we want to take our lives out of the Father’s hands and have them under
our own control that we find ourselves gripped with anxiety. The secret of
freedom from anxiety is freedom from ourselves and
abandonment of our own plans. But that spirit emerges in our lives only when
our minds are filled with the knowledge that our Father can be trusted
implicitly to supply everything we need.
Sinclair Ferguson
The Sermon on the Mount, 1987, p. 144. By permission Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA.
Worry is
faith in the negative; trust in the unpleasant, assurance of disaster and
belief in defeat. Worry is wasting today’s time to clutter up tomorrow’s
opportunities with yesterday’s troubles.
Worry is the
unpleasant assurance of disaster.
Don't worry
about anything, pray about everything.
Author Unknown
Today is the
tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
Worry is
carrying a burden God never intended us to bear.
Worry is a
thin stream of fear that trickles through the mind, which, if encouraged, will
cut a channel so wide that all other thoughts will be drained out.
Author Unknown
Worry
is a cycle of inefficient thought, centered on a fear.
Author Unknown
Six things to use
as a game plan when you start to worry and obsess:
1. Names the pressures.
2. Identify how you express anxiety.
3. Ask yourself, Why am I anxious?
4. Which promise of Jesus speaks to you most?
5. Go to your Father.
6. Give.
David Powlison
Excerpted
from: Seeing With New Eyes, P&R Publishers, 2003, p.122-124.
When you live
to please yourself, circumstances that God designs to teach you to trust and
obey Him instead become temptations for you to fear and worry.
Self-Confrontation Manuel, Lesson 19, Page 4,
Used by Permission of the Biblical Counseling Foundation.
What does
your anxiety do? It does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, but it does empty
today of its strength. It does not make you escape the evil; it makes you unfit
to cope with it when it comes. God gives us the power to bear all the sorrow of
His making, but He does not guarantee to give us strength to bear the burdens
of our own making such as worry induces.
Many
over-scrupulous, rigid and obsessional perfectionists
may worry intermittently for years concerning some relative trivialities, which
have done no real harm to anyone, except the worrier. Here surely the emphasis
should be on God’s wonderful and complete forgiveness available in Christ, and
Philippians 3:13 is more appropriate.
Derick Bingham
Encouragement
– Oxygen for the Soul, Christian Focus, 1997, p. 76. Used by Permission.
All worry is
about tomorrow, whether about food or
clothing or anything else; but all worry is experienced today. Whenever we are anxious, we are upset in the present time
about some event which may happen in the future. However, these fears of ours
about tomorrow, which we feel so
acutely today, may not be fulfilled.
The popular advice, "Don't worry, it may never happen," is doubtless
unsympathetic, but perfectly true. People worry that they may
not pass an exam, or find a job, or get married, or retain their health, or
succeed in some enterprise. But it is all fantasy. “Fears may be liars;”
they often are. Most worries…never materialize.
John Stott
The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, IVP, 1978, p.
168-169.
A Christian’s
freedom from anxiety is not due to some guaranteed freedom from trouble, but to
the folly of worry...and especially to the confidence that God is our Father, that even permitted suffering is within the orbit of
His care.
John Stott
The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, IVP, 1978, p.
167-168.
Worry, like a
rocking chair, will give you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere.
Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take
hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.
“Concern”
means to “have an interest in, give attention to, be
engaged by a situation, as a matter of consideration or responsibility.”
“Worry” is a disquieted uneasiness of mind, an anxious apprehension concerning
an impending or anticipated situation; fretting about a foreboding misfortune
or failure (“worried” and “anxious” are used as synonyms)… “Concern” becomes
“worry” when we fail to relate the situation that confronts us to the source of
sufficiency in God.
James Fowler
Excerpted from: Worry, Study Outlines, 1999, www.christinyou.net. Used by Permission.
To worry is to assume a responsibility that is not necessarily ours to assume;
failing to recognize that God is bigger than any problem we might have, and
loves us enough to seek our highest good in the midst of every situation.
James Fowler
Excerpted from: Worry, Study Outlines, 1999, www.christinyou.net. Used by Permission.
Worry is a
form of humanistic self-orientation that thinks, “It's up to me to take care of
this situation,” and is thus a form of practical atheism, acting as if there is
no God to deal with the situation, or that God doesn’t know or care about the
situation.
James Fowler
Excerpted from: Worry, Study Outlines, 1999, www.christinyou.net. Used by Permission.
Anxiety
is the poison of human life; the parent of many sins and of more miseries. In a
world where everything is doubtful, and where we may be disappointed, and be
blessed in disappointment, why this restless stir and commotion of mind? Can it
alter the cause, or unravel the mystery of human events?
Tryon
Edwards
Worriers act
as if they might be able to control the uncontrollable. Central to worry is the
illusion that we can control things… The illusion of control lurks inside your
anxiety. Anxiety and control are two sides of one coin. When we can’t control
something, we worry about it.
David Powlison
Worry - Pursuing a Better Path to Peace, P&R Publishing, 2004, p. 12. Used by Permission.
All
the things we worry about are what we want but could lose. That’s why we worry.
The best thing you could ever want you will never lose, and you can always give
it away.
David Powlison
Worry - Pursuing a Better Path to Peace, P&R Publishing, 2004, p. 26. Used by Permission.
Here
[is the] game plan when you start to worry and obsess:
1. Name the pressures. You always worry about something. What things tend
to hook you?… Anxieties feel endless and infinite –
but they're finite and specific.
2. Identify how you express anxiety. How does anxiety show up in your
life?
3. Ask yourself, Why am I anxious? Worry always
has its inner logic… What do I want, need, crave, expect, demand, and lust
after? Or what do I fear either losing or never getting? Identify the specific
lust of the flesh. Anxious people “eagerly seek” the gifts more than the Giver.
They bank treasure in the wrong place. What is preoccupying me, so that I
pursue it with all my heart?
4. Which promise of Jesus [from the Bible] speaks to you most? Grab one
promise and work with it.
5. Go to your Father. Talk to Him. Your Father
cares about the things you worry about. Your Father knows what you need. Cast
your cares upon Him, because He cares for you.
6. Give. Do and say something constructive. Care for someone else. Give to
meet human need. In the darkest hole, when life is toughest, there’s always
some way to give yourself away.
David Powlison
Excerpted from: Worry - Pursuing a Better Path to Peace, P&R Publishing,
2004, p. 27-30. Used by Permission.
The great
antidote to anxiety is to come to God in prayer. We are to pray about everything.
Nothing is too big for Him to handle, and nothing is too small to escape
His attention.
The Practice of Godliness, NavPress, 1996, p.
159. Used by permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com. All rights
reserved.