May 14
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” (Philippians 4:6)
When I finished yesterday’s thoughts, I intended to move on today to Resisting Principle 2. But this morning I woke up thinking more about how we as Christians are really messed up about a lot of things, that is, we have a lot of sin in us still and often behave badly, yet somehow we are oblivious to these sins of ours. I know I was for many years and probably still am in some areas. We are much more attuned to the sins of others than we are ourselves.
How can we recognize when we are being tempted when we aren’t even aware we are sinning? I’d like to explore in more depth a few areas of sin that I have struggled with in the past or have seen others struggle with, areas that I was unaware of how deep my sin issues were.
ANXIETY. Do you get uptight about things? Do you worry about things? Do you have anxiety about what others are doing or the way they are doing it? Do you feel like you have to do things yourself? Do you get impatient with people because of how they do things? Are you a perfectionist? Do you have to do things yourself because others cannot do them as well as you? Do you get uptight when you are around messiness and clutter? Do you have mini panic attacks about anything? Do you dread anything and think about it excessively ahead of the event? Are you compulsive about anything? Do you have to have things clean or arranged in just the right way? Do you have phobias? Are you anxious about finances? Are you anxious about your appearance? Are you anxious about your performance? Do you react to people close to you in a controlling or angry way because they don’t do what you want them to do, the way you feel they should? Do you ever have a nagging, persistent, or regular feeling of unsettledness or anxiety because you are concerned that certain things may not turn out okay in the end? Does anyone in your life make you feel anxious and uneasy for any reason?
I have experienced some of the things on this list for years, yet I never really thought of myself as an anxious person, nor did I think that these feelings were sin. But the scripture clearly says “be anxious for nothing,” so I had to have been sinning when I allowed anxious feelings and thoughts to dominate my thinking. And if I was sinning by being anxious, then every time that those thoughts would enter my mind would be the point of temptation, where I could either turn it into a prayer to the Lord and consciously choose to entrust it to Him, or I could choose to hold on to it and fret about it.
My point is that anxious thoughts can be so ingrained in our way of looking at life and dealing with situations that we aren’t even aware that those thinking patterns are sinful and are not what the Lord would have us think or do. And many times the words and actions that would stem from those anxious thoughts just added sin to sin. If we struggle with anxiety, we have to recognize it as sin, as something that the Lord does not want us to do. Anxiety reflects a lack of faith and trust, does it not, and God wants us to trust Him and entrust our cares to Him. When we don’t do this, when we don’t trust Him, when we allow anxious thoughts to go unchallenged in our hearts and minds, we are sinning.
Learn to recognize anxiety in your heart. Learn to recognize when you are tempted to be anxious about something and refuse to fall into the sin of anxiety. Cry out to God for His peace and resolution of the issues that concern you. Turn it over to Him in prayer. Recognize that anxiety is sin and how many areas this sin has gained a foothold in your mind.