Anxiety Addiction
Anxiety is short-lived if we give it to God.What comes to mind when you think of addiction? Alcohol. Drugs. Chocolate. How about this one: Anxiety. Does it surprise you that we would consider anxiety to be an addiction? Well, it must be. Why else would people hold on to their worries when they don’t have to?
Anxiety is an unproductive activity. It doesn’t accomplish anything positive (although it has plenty of negative side effects, such as stress, high blood pressure, and ulcers). You would think that people would try to get rid of their worries if it were possible to do so. And it is! Let God be responsible for the situation.
It won’t take you twelve steps to get over your anxiety addiction. It takes just one: Give your worries to God.
The Lord is good. When trouble comes, he is a strong refuge. And he knows everyone who trusts him.
Nahum 1:7
So your solution to anxiety is “Give it to God”. Well, I’d like to, but I don’t know how. I’ve studied scripture and prayed. I’ve taken antidepressants and listened to advice. I’ve visualized putting my anxious thoughts in a box and throwing the box into a fire. I manage to function and stay out of the psyche ward (I’ve been there and don’t want to go back), but I’m still anxious and I know very little of the joy Christians are supposed to exhibit. My fear is that one day I’ll face judgement and have nothing to show, no way to justify my time on earth.
It would seem simplistic to give our worries to God if God wasn’t capable of handling them. Then it would be no better than “wishing” or “hoping” something would happen based on superstition. There’s a difference between the way someone without God in their life “hopes” that good things will happen, and someone who has put their trust in God by faith. When you trust God by faith to handle your problems and anxieties, it means you trust him with the outcome, no matter what the circumstances. But the key is “faith.” Not blind faith that “wishes” God will work in your life, or faith in faith, but a faith based on the reality and the trustworthiness of God.
If we trust God in this way, that doesn’t necessarily mean that everything is going to go the way we want it. God sees the big picture. We don’t. We think that we know what’s best for us. We don’t. Only God knows. This isn’t “pie in the sky” kind of stuff. It’s real.
Now, trusting God doesn’t mean that you do nothing. God expects us to be active. First of all, active in our pursuit of Him through prayer, reading Scripture, seeking wise counsel from people who love the Lord, and more prayer. You are doing this, and we would encourage you to keep doing these things.
Second, God wants us to be active in doing those things he wants us to do. Ephesians 2:10 says that God prepared good things for us to do long before the world was even created. Each of us is accountable to do those things that please God, and those things often involve other people, many of whom are a lot worse off than we are.
The other thing we would tell you is that trusting God will bring about results. Trusting yourself by worrying won’t produce any results.