"Be Anxious for Nothing"

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!  Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."~Philippians 4:4-7

Each one of us has either dealt with anxiety ourselves, or has a close friend or family member who struggles with it. It is an epidemic; over 3 million Americans use Xanax on a daily basis. 

We think we have to do it all, be it all, handle it all, and we just can't take the pressure. The thing is, we have stopped looking to the One who is in control of it all.

To cope with all the stress we take our medicine, exercise, veg out in front of the tv...But, you know what...we are still stressed!

The seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to maturity. ~Luke 8:14

As long as we try to control things ourselves, we inhibit spiritual growth. We are "choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to maturity." No amount of medication, relaxation....will break the cycle.

There is only one way to defeat anxiety:

 "Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall. "~Psalm 55:22

I have found several quotes dealing with anxiety that I have found to be helpful.

Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength. ~C.H. Spurgeon

 There is no need for two to care, for God to care and the creature too. ~C.H. Spurgeon

 We imagine that a little anxiety and worry are an indication of how really wise we are; it is much more an indication of how really wicked we are. Fretting springs from a determination to get our own way. Our Lord never worried and He was never anxious, because He was not “out” to realize His own ideas; He was “out” to realize God’s ideas. Fretting is wicked if you are a child of God. Have you been bolstering up that stupid soul of yours with the idea that your circumstances are too much for God? Put all “supposing” on one side and dwell in the shadow of the Almighty. Deliberately tell God that you will not fret about that thing. All our fret and worry is caused by calculating without God. ~Oswald Chambers

Oh, how great peace and quietness would he possess who should cut off all vain anxiety and place all his confidence in God. ~Thomas a Kempis

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. ~John MacArthur

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

The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety. ~George Muller

Worry is the antithesis of trust. You simply cannot do both. They are mutually exclusive. ~Elisabeth Elliot

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 apostle Paul in writing to the Philippians gives them the admonition to be “anxious for nothing,” telling them that the cure for anxiety is found on one’s knees, that it is the peace of God that calms our spirit and dissipates anxiety (Phil. 4:6). ~R.C. Sproul

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

Every tomorrow has two handles.  We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.  ~Henry Ward Beecher

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

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. ~Jerry Bridges

Today I purpose to turn everything over to God; to cast my cares upon Him. When we worry over a situation, we are taking it out of God's hands and putting it in our own. That is something I do not want to do. I know I can't handle everything, but I know the One who can. I pray for peace and joy for all of you.