Craig Mobey (D.Min.; M.Th. Religious Specialist in Christian Pastoral Counselling; craigmobey@gmail.com)
Kay Brugge (D.Phil.; M.A., BA (Hons). Th. Specialist Counsellor; drkaybrugge@gmail.com)
Someone once said, “Living with anxiety is like being followed by a voice. It knows all your insecurities and uses them against you. It gets to the point when it’s the loudest voice in the room. The only one you can hear” ~ Unknown.
Anxiety is the capacity to imagine a catastrophic future. It is fear without the accompanying danger. Anxiety can immobilize, suck the life force out of you and trigger your fight and flight responses, resulting in a host of unhealthy coping mechanisms with both mental and physical consequences.
And this is the “thing” with anxiety, words like: what if, fear, dread, procrastination, immobility, self-reproach, exhaustion, worry, imagine, react, subconscious, stress, shame, and depression are often part of the crazy-making, internal anxiety dialogue; a dialogue that muffles voices of reason. The voices and looming images conjured up by anxiety can be so convincing and frightening, that they drown out not only your grounding voice of reason, but more importantly, the comfort of God and hope brought by the Risen Christ.
What may prove challenging though, is the relationship between anxiety and a (perceived) “failure in faith,” for example, Philippians 4:6-7 says not to be anxious, Isaiah 41:10 says not to fear and Matthew 6:34 says not to worry. Having said this, at the same time, we caution against over-spiritualizing matters because firstly, it can create guilt when our anxiety and the Word of God do not align and secondly, it can discount the purpose of anxiety.
Reflect, for a moment over this: Don Quixote in Miguel Cervantes’ novel sees a collection of windmills and believes they are giants. When he fights a windmill, he gets pummelled. Imagine! He didn’t listen to his voice of reason–his companion, Sancho Panza. He believed that sorcery had turned the windmills into giants.
Now, reflect on this: What if anxiety is a God-given mechanism to capture our attention and to stimulate an appropriate and timeous response to prevent the “anxiety windmills” from turning into “menacing giants?”
If matters are not checked, an anxiety disorder could result, meaning that the appropriateness, frequency, and intensity is such that it interferes with normal functioning. The distinction between what is purposeful/useful and what is not is critical, and so is the importance of intervening and slaying the “denial dragon” that guards and feeds fear and anxiety, thus enabling them to thrive.
This also means shutting down the enemy’s workshop, who on the back of anxiety lives rent-free in the sufferer’s mind from where it presses the levers of fear and doubt, thus trying to drive a wedge between the sufferer and God. Therefore, put on your full armour of God (Ephesians 6:11) and take comfort from Philippians 4:6 which reads, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”
If anxiety relates to a feeling of dread about an anticipated future expectation, it, therefore, also means that you can only experience and face anxiety in the present. It is indeed in the present where you can ask for, and receive help, which typically involves spiritual growth, therapy, lifestyle changes (e.g., exercise) and possibly, medication. Finding workable ways to manage anxiety and keep it from interfering with life is, at the end of the day, a life skill that all of us need to have.
It helps to restructure anxiety’s exaggeration by challenging the evidence behind catastrophic predictions as well as black-and-white thinking to identify realistic/adequately grounded perspectives.
In other words, if you must ask “what if?” then try and ground the question into “what is.”
- “What is” sometimes means uncertainty, ambiguity; and opposing thoughts, which as uncomfortable or seemingly unbearable as they may be, are the anvils on which growth and resilience are forged. Professor Daniel Louw, in his book “Network of the Human Soul” correctly states that maturation of the soul is moulded between resistance and surrender. “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).
- “What is” also means, as Philip Yancey states, exposing the thinking errors that attribute all suffering to God, viewing it as His punishment for human failure, or conversely, assuming that life with God will never include suffering.
If your catastrophic prediction is grounded in your present reality, then you can influence your future from the present by managing matters, taking appropriate and timeous action, setting a plan of action, and solving problems. The future doesn’t just happen, it is created and therefore, you can shape your experience of it from the here-and-now.
It is always an appropriate time to explore biblical truths, but with the appreciation that the realization of biblical truths might not be instantaneous, but rather a process of spiritual growth that is assisted by/undergirded by therapy, medication, and changes to one’s lifestyle.
Suffering may become more bearable if you remind yourself that it is a journey to becoming more Christ-like. Like the Apostle Paul, this means leaning into the discomfort and the challenges, whether real or perceived, by drawing hope and strength in suffering from the Risen Christ.
You need to consider lengthening your keel and pointing your sailboat into the wind. “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us” (Romans 5:3-5). Endurance races aren’t won in the safety and calmness of the harbour, they are fought on the raging oceans.
Finally, there are some things we cannot change and must therefore instead, accept. In other words, we restructure our relationship with upsetting thoughts and extrapolations. Acceptance leads to both tolerance as well as the opportunity to shift our focus toward the things that matter, are real and influenceable. Like Don Quixote, we need to dispel the mental distortions fuelled by anxiety that try to convince us that windmills are giants. Acceptance, letting go of self-accusations, being kind to and fully accepting of yourself in moments of distress and suffering, are critical stepping-stones on the journey toward recovery and to remind yourself of your identity in Christ.
C.S. Lewis said that “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain.” In his book, “Where is God when it hurts”, Philip Yancey explains that unforeseen calamities apply a force that can break through the hard outer shell of personal security. The act of breaking (much like a blacksmith moulding a piece of iron), will cause pain, but need not destroy. Suffering can teach us the value of dependence–the breaking down of self-sufficiency creating a profound new level of faith in God, thus transforming our suffering into qualities of lasting eternal value.
Paul had learned that weakness and sorrow could be means of grace if we turn to God in the spirit of sincere humility, gratitude, and dependence. This, however, does not mean resigned acceptance of suffering, as Jesus’ life attests to.
Let us know if we can help,
God bless,
Craig and Kay