Anxiety

ANXIETY

Resolution Through God’s Provision

by Nancy Moelk

 

Demands Versus Potential

Imagine you are a small child playing in a park. In the distance you hear an orchestra giving an open-air concert. You run towards the music. A local orchestra is playing lively music. Your eyes are riveted on the conductor who is guiding the ensemble with graceful and punctuated movements. As the music washes over your senses, you move your arms in the air, as if you were conducting the orchestra. Joy fills your small heart as you experience a “oneness” with the music.

Now imagine that you are in the same scene, but in another role. The regular conductor is ill and you are the last-minute-replacement conductor. You are standing in front of the orchestra conducting the musicians.  Your hands are clammy and you are sweating profusely and feeling very nervous.  Instead of enjoying the music as you lead, there are terrible thoughts running through your mind: “What will happen if I make a mistake? Will the instruments get out of sync? Do the musicians understand my lead? Will the audience be disappointed with my performance?”

While the child and the adult are “doing” the same thing, one is experiencing joy and the other anxiety. What makes the difference? Expectations and demands, both real and perceived, are producing the anxiety. Whereas the child is most concerned with the experience of “being one” with the music, the adult is caught up primarily with “performing,” or making an impression on others.

The word anxiety comes from a German word (angst) which means “inbetweeness.” It is the distance between two points, A and B, where A is where I am, and B is where I am expected to be. The greater the distance between those two points, the greater the “inbetweeness” or anxiety.

 

The following chart helps to illustrate this idea:

Point B = Where I am expected or supposed to be

The greater the Distance, the greater the Anxiety

Point A = Where I perceive myself to be

In a state of anxiety, we worry that we will not be adequate, that we will be insufficient for the task at hand. We may make great demands of ourselves, or we may feel that others are demanding much from us. Whether the expectations are our own or what we perceive others want, the effect is the same: we worry that we cannot perform at the “appropriate” level. This is called anxiety. It can also be a way of avoiding deep emotions that we cannot face.

As a six-year old child I attended catechism classes one afternoon per week. One day, one of the nuns said something that stuck in my mind. What I remember her saying was, “You should think about God all the time. Your every thought should be of Him.” Whatever she may have been trying to communicate, the interpretation of my childlike mind was this: “I must constantly focus my inner thoughts on God.”

So from that day, I tried hard to continually think about God or Jesus. Whenever I realized that I was not thinking of Him, I felt guilty and immediately tried to concentrate on Him again.  To complicate matters, this was not the only rule I had to keep.  At that time in the Roman Catholic Church, there was a requirement to show reverence for the name of Christ by slightly bowing the head when you uttered his name.

I automatically assumed that this practice also applied to thinking His name. So now, not only am I required, I thought, to think about Jesus all the time; but as I did so, I needed to bow my head in reverence just like we did in church. You see the dilemma? The one rule required me to think of Jesus constantly; the other to reverence His name by bowing my head every time I thought of His name. So now I was walking through my day continually nodding my head and striving to think of Jesus at every moment!  The next expectation of myself was to manage all this secretly so no one saw me nodding my head all the time.

I laugh now as I remember my predicament, but at the time I was deeply concerned. My anxiety level rose with each demand. My young heart saw no way of resolving the dilemma except to forsake God and burn in hell—the thought of which itself produced a new level of anxiety!

When the demands of our life are at the same level as our potential to meet those demands, we do not experience anxiety.

But when the demands are greater than our perceived potential, our anxiety will rise accordingly:

The only way to diffuse the anxiety is to change either the demands upon us or to raise our perceived potential to meet the demand. In the example of my predicament, if I had shared my problem with the nun, she may have helped to resolve the problem (change the demands) by saying:

“You don’t need to bow your head when you think of Jesus’ name, only when you speak it aloud.”

This would have diminished some of my self-inflicted demands based on my interpretation of the rule. She may have also added:

“God wants you to concentrate on what you are doing so you can do your best. Let Him know you are thinking of Him in the morning and before you begin a task. And then concentrate on your tasks so you can do everything well to honor Him.”

This clarification would have further reduced my anxiety by modifying and diminishing another of the demands.

On the other hand, suppose there is a valid demand being made upon me but I am unable to meet that demand with my existing potential. Then, the only way to reduce my anxiety is by increasing my potential.

In first grade at a public school, I learned how to print letters rather than write in cursive. For second grade, my parents transferred me to a Catholic School. All the children there had learned to write in cursive during the previous year.

When I heard that I would be expected to know cursive, my anxiety level soared. I only knew how to print. My stomach knotted and my mind raced with worry as I imagined that I would be considered stupid by everyone in the class.

I can’t remember how long I experienced this anxiety, but something happened to help diffuse it. My mother called me to her side one evening after supper. She sat me down in a chair and handed me a pencil and paper. She showed me how to write a “big A” and a “little a” in cursive. She had me practice writing on top of her letter a few times and then told me to fill the paper with “big and little a’s”.  I set about the task with great energy and awe that one could actually learn this seemingly impossible lesson.

Almost every night for the rest of the summer I practiced letters of the alphabet. By the fall, I knew how to write in cursive. By teaching me a skill and raising my potential, my mother created an environment where my anxiety could be resolved.

Now these are simple illustrations. Life is full of much more complicated scenarios which are less easily resolved. And how do we resolve these? If we had to face them alone, then there would be reason for anxiety!!! No one is able to meet life’s challenges alone.  For me, the first step in overcoming my anxious thoughts is realizing that I am not alone in my predicament. You are not alone either.

God is with us and cares for us. He designed us in our mother’s womb (Ps. 139) and has all the hairs of our head numbered. He wants to be a constant help to us in every moment of our lives. Though the answers to our problems and the resolution of our anxiety are truly impossible for us, nothing is impossible for God.

Let us look at some of the things His word says about anxiety in order to understand how He helps us:

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Philippians 4:4-7

Remember that our young conductor could joyfully “direct” the orchestra because he/she felt no demands being made. Suppose our friend grew up and studied music. What if God had given this person extraordinary talent and they became the greatest conductor the world had ever known? As they stand before the orchestra, they become one with the music. They experience nothing but joy as they use their gifts. Here is an example of the potential increasing along with the demands. As a matter of fact, we usually grow and develop because of demands that are put upon us.

We grow normally and naturally as we meet challenges when we are in a safe environment and receive the needed resources to meet the challenges. The secure, well-nurtured child will joyfully enter first grade as the challenges of reading and writing are placed upon him. But the troubled, poorly cared for child will suffer terrible anxiety as he struggles to concentrate and develop without a safe foundation from which to grow. There are usually established systems that maintain the same expectations for emotionally impoverished children as for those who are sheltered, loved, and provided for.  For those who do not have the resources to meet the demands, but see others rising almost effortlessly to the challenge, the anxiety increases all the more.

This drama of anxiety is played out in all our lives over and over again. At every turn we encounter a new “law”: someone that we are supposed to be or something that we are supposed to do.

• Always look happy and cheerful.
• Eat less fat, carbohydrates, more roughage, or whatever your ideal diet dictates.
• Be more involved at church, in politics, at home, etc.
• Invest more money for retirement.
• Get more accomplished at work.
• Be more spiritual.

And these are in addition to the other axioms that have plagued us from our youth:

• It’s all up to you.
• God helps those who help themselves.
• Don’t be a stupid. Be smart.
• Don’t be angry, afraid, hurt, etc.
• Be spontaneous.
• Don’t worry, be happy.

 

It is difficult to understand the extent to which axioms like these have ruled our lives from our youth and determined the level of anxiety we live with on a daily basis. We can be harboring many fears based on our list of axioms-to-live-by and be very unaware of why we are anxious. However, I do not recommend emotional or psychological archeology. Instead, of exhausting our energies digging deep into our inner selves, we can allow the Holy Spirit to lead this “search and destroy” mission.

In addition to all the external axioms thrown at us, everyone then develops their own set of internal “laws”. They are created by our perception of others’ expectations of us. (I note the word “perception” because we may think others expect one thing when really they don’t expect that at all!) You could probably fill in the blank with some of the internal laws that torment you–the ones you have tried, with limited success, to keep.

Another problem with our axioms and laws is that they can be contradictory. For instance, at work you have learned that you must “be proactive, take the bull by the horns, show them who is in charge”.  You have been rewarded for this and seen others suffer because they didn’t live by this rule.  That is how you are expected to act at work. But then when you get home, your wife complains that you are too controlling! She says, “You don’t allow anyone else to make any decisions. Let others have a chance.” And then you go to church where you serve on a committee. Here you are expected to be both pushy and compliant, and to know when to do each!

As you can see, this is very tiring and the potential for anxiety is ever-present. Anxiety is a feeling of being stuck. We are stuck, as mentioned earlier at a point, which we will call “A”. It is all we can do, all we are capable of being (from our present perspective). At that place we are who we are. It is the truth of where I am. Even if I resist admitting and acknowledging that this is where I am, nevertheless, it is me.

The second point we shall call “B”. It is where a certain person, group, or “law” dictates I should be and I could be doing it to myself, too. It may be a demand or expectation I internalized as a child, or it may be imposed on me in my present life. If I have submitted myself to this law and believe that I need to be what it says I should be and do what it says I should do, then it has great power over me. Unfortunately, my “laws” have no power to enable me to meet them. Thus comes the anxiety. I am expected to be what I do not have the power to be.

 

Anxiety as a Distraction from Pain and/or Helplessness

There is a certain payoff, or reward, in anxiety. It gives us something to do when we feel there is nothing we can do. It provides a mental exercise in the midst of a state of paralysis. Using our anxiety, we still feel some sense of power. The bottom line is this: anxiety helps us to avoid facing our limitations and ultimately our powerlessness. It also serves as an important diversion away from painful emotions and thoughts that we do not either want to face or feel ready to face.

Last year I worked with four different people ranging in ages from 14 years old to near 70 years old who all had degrees of anxiety. Every one of them received help for their anxiety by recognizing the anxiety as a symptom of another problem that needed to be addressed. It was as if they were playing a little game with themselves. It reminds me of the times I was traveling with an infant and small child who was hungry and had to wait to eat. I would use different distractions to keep their mind off of their hunger until I could make a bottle, etc.

One person I helped, a man in his late 60’s, had such bad anxiety that he couldn’t sleep or focus. The first level of his anxiety came from pressure to perform at work (demands) in ways that he did not feel competent technically (potential). But instead of being able to get more training, he was paralyzed in fear and spent most of his energy focusing on his anxiety as his real problem. As he told his life story, it became clear that a certain amount of his anxiety was stemming from the avoidance of deep pain. All through his life, his mother had told him openly that she had considered having an abortion when she was pregnant with him. She assured him that she was so glad she had not taken that option, but obviously her intent during his time in the womb had left a deep wound. To heal, he had to face terrible feelings of rejection and annihilation which he had repressed for most of his life. He ended up taking some time off work to address these issues. It was a constant fight to not believe that the anxiety was a problem all by itself and not a distraction from much more painful and piercing emotions. With great help from the presence of God which was accessed by different exercises to practice It, this fellow gradually began to have enough relational capacity to face and feel the emotions he had been running from all of his life. This example is an extreme but sometimes it is easier to understand problems by looking at an illustration from the edges.

In our lives, we have all faced increasing demands without experiencing an increase in our potential to meet those demands. Why does God tell us in the previously mentioned passage (Phil. 4:4-7) to be anxious for nothing?  He knew we’d be in situations where our potential didn’t meet our demands.  Why does the passage say that the peace of God will fill our hearts (feelings) and minds (thinking)?  It is because of His potential. He tells us not to be anxious but to instead turn to him in prayer, spending time in his presence, talking to him about whatever demands are being placed upon us because He will provide us with the resources and the potential to meet those demands. Therefore, we pray with thanksgiving, because he has promised to “never leave us or forsake us” (Deut. 31:6), and “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him. . ..” (2 Peter 1:3).

I had these promises in my head for many years as a Christian before I really saw them become a reality in my life. I had little joy or gentleness. And I certainly had little peace! Passages in scripture like these perplexed me. How was my telling God my problems going to fix them? If anything, verses like these made me more anxious! Here was just another demand being placed on my depleted resources. I did not see myself as having the potential for joy, gentleness, and peace. I felt again and again that I was failing as a Christian. I want to note here that I believe many Christians feel just like I did.

During the early years of my Christian life while I was attending college, I was able to “maintain” an exterior of joy, peace, etc. But marriage, children and a difficult mission field assignment kept raising the demands upon my life until finally I began to break down inside. I stopped hoping that I could ever be a Christian like the kind I read about in the Scriptures.  My performance fell hopelessly short of the standard.

We returned home after seven years of missionary service. I decided that I would not continue in ministry of any kind. I was finished! I was done with teaching others about that which I did not see manifest in my own life. At the time, it seemed as if my whole world was caving in around me. In retrospect, I see what a wonderful place God had brought me to. He had directed me to the end of my own potential and the end of my own resources.

You see, becoming a Christian creates a whole new set of demands upon a person.  So now, in addition to all the other demands upon us at work, home, church, etc. we have an even heavier burden than all these others combined! We are to “be holy as God is holy.” We may rightly ask ourselves, “How are we to be like Christ and God?”  This demand and our inability to meet it with our own resources typifies all other anxieties.  As a Christian, you may be experiencing some terrible anxiety.

I believe this has to happen to every Christian who would really know God in their inner person.  In Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:16-19, he prays that we would “know this love that surpasses knowledge.”   This is not a contradiction.  He is praying that we would be taken beyond what our natural potential would permit.

How do we reconcile our heavy, anxiety-producing demands with Jesus’ words?

“Come unto me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you ear.”

The apostle Paul experienced anxiety in the face of the law. But this wasn’t an arbitrary law laid down by mere mortals. It was the holy and perfect law of God as recorded in the Old Testament.  No matter how the opinions of man may ebb and flow, God and his absolute law are and always will be true and unchanging.  Whereas people may demand one thing of us today and another tomorrow, God’s expectations of man have never changed in the least from the foundation of the world. His ways are right and just.

Romans 7 gives us an inside glimpse of the anxiety in the apostle Paul over not being able to keep God’s law. First he establishes in vs. 7-13 that the law is not bad. The demands of God’s law on a person are not outrageous or unjustified. This is God’s world and He should know better than anyone what is “right” (i.e. normal) for His creation. But sin has invaded God’s world and every heart within it. So the potential to meet the demands of the law have been ruined.

“Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.” (Romans 7: 9-10)

The law was meant to bring life because obeying God and His ways is always full of life. But, instead, having been robbed of the life of God within us by generational and personal sin, all the law does now is highlight our incapacity to meet God’s standards. God’s standards can never be met apart from His potential. If man stands alone, he is helpless to rise to life. He is condemned to death. This truth has great potential for both creating and removing anxiety.

Paul confirms what we have been saying about anxiety. Until he became aware of the expectations of the law, there was no problem. Being at point A was acceptable. But as soon as point B was established, he saw his insufficiency and inadequacy in the matter. Even though getting to point B would have been good for Paul and something that he truly desired, he saw himself helpless to get to that point on his own.

Paul uses the example of coveting (wanting what someone else has to the point of desiring that they lose it and you get it).  Until he heard God’s law, he did not understand that it offended God to covet. Once he understood that it is an insult to God to desire what God has not given him, but given someone else, Paul now knew what was expected of him by God. But in himself he also saw his inability to keep himself from coveting.

In Romans 7, verses 14-23 Paul describes how he feels in his anxious predicament. Unlike a human law that may or may not be wholesome, this is God’s law: holy and perfect. This is what Paul is wrestling with! The conclusion that Paul draws is expressed in vs. 24.

“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

You see, the truth is, when we realize we are stuck at point A, but need to be at point B, and we understand that we have no resource to change our position, we have several possible responses:

1. We can be anxious. We may even fix our attention on our anxiety as a diversion to facing the gravity of our predicament.
2. We can deny we are anxious and/or that we really are at point A and need to be at point B.
3. We can strive with all our might to move toward point B and believe that we are capable of getting there in our own strength. Eventually we will tire out or we will lie to ourselves about our progress (realign with Point 2 above).
4. We can give in to despair about our hopeless position.
5. We can face our helplessness and hopelessness and cry out for someone greater than ourselves to rescue us.

Number five is what Paul does. It is an illustration of Phil.4: 6. He comes before God and faces himself honestly. He admits just where he is and how incapable he is to change his position.

In our anxiety equation we see this:

demand > potential

God’s law > Paul’s ability

The demand here will not change as it did in my case as a child in an earlier example. Here the only answer is for the potential to be changed. Paul tells us in vs. 25 “Through Jesus Christ” this will happen. And then in Romans 8, he gives a discourse on life through the power to the Holy Spirit.

This, my friends, is the answer to our anxiety: The indwelling of God, by The Holy Spirit. He will lead us into all truth. He will lead us into truth about:

1. The laws or demands we have submitted ourselves to that are not God’s will for us.
2. Our potential without Christ.
3. His provision for us in Christ through the Holy Spirit.
4. How he himself transforms us into the image of his Son.
5. How to die to our flesh.

There has been research done recently on emotions such as anger, fear, anxiety, etc.  This research showed that intense emotions develop well-worn paths in our brains. They actually by-pass our thinking center and express themselves directly in our emotions and then our bodies. For example, when we experience anxiety, our heart starts pounding, our hands turn wet with sweat and our throat tightens.  All this takes place before we even analyze our feelings of anxiety. The cure for this syndrome, the researchers state, is to learn to connect these feeling to the cognitive (thinking) part of the brain and analyze the data.

In analyzing the data, the brain may discover that the present situation is not really a threat but is only reminding us of a past threat. If this is the case, then remembering the past threat and its unpleasantness and then facing it, we will be able to resolve the “wayward” emotions. In other words, the feelings are diffused by facing them and their cause and then establishing a new way of perceiving the situation that created them.

The scriptural way of explaining this is seen in Romans 12: 2.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

We must bring every thought captive to Christ.

We have not only a Biblical mandate but also an outline for how to renew our minds. The Holy Spirit leads us into all truth. But He speaks the truth in love. It is for our ultimate good. He shows us what we have believed about ourselves, about God and about others. He shows us the hidden things of our souls, the deep lies that create terrible anxiety, the deep sins that keep us separated from God.

When we come to Christ, we are full of emotional reactions growing out of the numerous roots of our emotional experiences. We are not grounded in the love of God. We do not yet know or believe He will cause all things to work together for good.  So even though we are Christians, we may be full of anxiety about many things. God will faithfully help us to unwind each cause for anxiety as we go to him in prayer.

Here are some guidelines for our prayers concerning anxiety:

1. Talk to you soul, like the psalmist did. Assure yourself that God loves you so much that you can afford to face all the truth He desires to show you, knowing He will go slowly, compassionately and kindly.
2. Ask God to help you define what demand you feel is being placed upon you that you feel unable to meet.
3. Ask for wisdom as to where this demand originated in your life (you may be repeating a pattern that goes all the way back to childhood).
4. Ask for discernment as to whether this demand is in agreement with

God’s will for your life.

5. Write a letter (that you will never send) to the person or persons who placed this demand upon you.

Here is a sample letter:

Dear ____________:

I perceive (you are confessing your perception, which may or may not reflect the viewpoint of others) that you are demanding from me

___________________________________________________________________________.

I want you to know, that I will only be able to be this or do this if it is God’s will for me. I can only do that for which He has equipped me. That’s all I want to do. And so I trust God to meet your needs apart from me because I can’t, and I trust Him to meet mine.

6. Write a letter to yourself.

Dear ____________ (your name):

I release you from having to be all sufficient, adequate and powerful in yourself. The Lord is near.

When I go to the beach, I experience some anxiety about swimming in the ocean. When I get in the waves I feel afraid that I will not be able to keep them from sweeping me out to sea or pounding me into the surf so that I can’t come up for air. So I feel I am at point A, powerless against the strength of nature—but I want to swim in the ocean! I want to be at point B, able to swim and enjoy the fun of playing in the waves!

So I work on this anxiety in prayer. As I stand in the waves, I begin to use my list as stated above:

1. Talk to you soul, like the psalmist did. Assure yourself that God loves you so much that you can afford to face all the truth He desires to show you, knowing He will go slowly, compassionately and kindly.

 OK, Nancy, God isn’t going to call you a wimp because you are afraid of the ocean. He has never given up on you yet. He even died for you when you had never done anything to make Him love you. He only wants to help and set you free.

2. Ask God to help you define what demand you feel is being placed upon you that you feel unable to meet.
   • God, what I’m seeing is that I feel that I must take care of myself. This is the demand I perceive. I feel that I must be on guard constantly to protect myself from some wave (whether it be water or circumstantial) overwhelming me. I am not great enough to take care of myself. There is so much out of my control.
3. Ask for wisdom as to where this demand originated in your life (you may be repeating a pattern that goes all the way back to childhood).
   • Show me where I began to see that I had to rely on myself to be in control of everything. I guess I felt abandoned as a child. In my eyes, my own needs were not important to my parents and I had to fend for myself. (I want to note here that part of this was my personality. I had two siblings who were very vocal about their needs and my parents “greased the wheel that squeaked.”
   • You are reminding me, too, Holy Spirit, of the three times I almost drowned, the last time being in the ocean. I guess I focused on the anxiety of being in the ocean and drowning because it painted such an accurate picture of how I feel about my life at times: helpless, powerless, and needy; trying to keep on my feet against capricious and potentially deadly waves.
4. Ask for discernment as to whether this demand is in agreement with

God’s will for your life.

• Lord, I know you don’t expect me to take care of myself. I am part of your bride (Ephesians 5:29) that you care for. You are not trying to destroy me, but to bring greater health and holiness in my life.

5. Write a letter (which you will never send) to the person or persons who placed this demand upon you.

Here is a sample letter:  Dear Mom and Dad:

I perceived (you are confessing your perception which may or may not reflect other’s viewpoints) that you demanded from me to take care of myself and not bother you. For some reason, I never connected well with you. I was always afraid to ask you for what I needed and so you often never knew. I felt on my own, even as a small child. I got the impression that I had to watch out for myself because no one else could or would. I want you to know that I don’t have what it takes to be my all in all. I don’t even think you realized most of what I was experiencing as a child. But it’s my perception of reality and has deeply affected my life even if it isn’t completely accurate. I have to start where I am.

I want you to know, that I will only be able to be this or do this if it is God’s will for me. I can only do that for which He has equipped me. That’s all I want to do. And so I trust God to be the one to take care of me and to keep me safe.

6. Write a letter to yourself.
   • Dear Nancy:

Take God’s yoke upon you. You are demanding more of yourself than you have potential to give. You can’t control the elements or life’s circumstances. I know you have expected yourself to be in control of so many uncontrollable things. That’s where your anxiety comes from. The way you feel in the ocean is just a small but accurate portrait of your life overall. I release you of the requirement to be all sufficient, adequate and powerful in yourself—or even of the requirement to protect yourself. The Lord is near.

I then deliberately went into the ocean, to put myself in an anxiety producing situation. In the midst of that, I began to pray in order to rewire the emotions through the thinking part of my brain. As I communed with the Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit in prayer, I began to see truth that set me free. Christ died for me. He did everything to save me from ultimate harm. He is out to protect me, not destroy me. He has promised to work all things together for good for me.

The end result is peace. I see why I used to feel so anxious based on my experiences and perceptions. But now I see things in a different “light”. God has entered the picture.

I would like to examine one more passage: 1Peter 5:5b-7.

“Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because „God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.  Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

 

Humility is the act of accepting our own limitations—that is why it cures anxiety. Once we stop believing we are somehow capable in our own might of being at point B when we reside at point A, our anxiety diminishes. Vs. 6 says it is God who lifts us up at the right time.  We are to cast all our anxiety upon Him because He cares for us.

The Father will move us to point B according to His plan, by His provision in Christ Jesus, and in His manner, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We are His workmanship. He is the potter. We need to rest in His love for us. He will never leave us or forsake us.

Let’s look at one last aspect of anxiety that is important to understand before we can resolve it.  Anxiety is actually an intricate defense mechanism that serves to protect us from pain. How so?  In our present day lives, we may be focusing on what is called “Anxiety 3”. This can be a phobia (fear of tunnels, insects, open spaces, etc.) or an addiction or a condition (such as a weight problem, handicap, job situation, marriage difficulty, etc.) that we think is our “problem.” We look at this and feel great anxiety because we are not the way we think we should be. We define our problem as “I am afraid of going out of the house” or “I would be fine if I just lost some weight” or “If only my kids would cooperate and behave, everything would be fine.” It soothes us that we can “identify” the problem and imagine there is a plan to remedy it.  We may find ourselves getting “comfortable” with this level of anxiety.  It actually helps us feel that we are in control.  We tell ourselves that our problem is not quite in control, but will be with some more effort.  We are in this picture, the master of our own destiny.  For a season, this will likely bring us comfort.

The truth is, what we are experiencing at this level of anxiety is not the “problem.” It is only a symptom of the real problem which is embedded as a fear deep within our personalities. It actually began with what we call “Anxiety 1” in the early years of life. There was a lack of safety that created deep-down fear. This may have been caused by a variety of things. Maybe your mother was always depressed or angry. Or you were not wanted. Or your father abandoned the family. Also, a parent’s death can leave a child in terrible anxiety. Because, as a small child, you were incapable of remedying the situation, you had to hide the fear. It never went away but was buried and repressed for lack of any other workable solution. This Anxiety 1 stayed dormant until a stressful life situation came along. This stressful life situation we’ll call Anxiety 2. For some people, like me, this happens as an adult. The mission field became Anxiety 2 for me. I began to have panic attacks after a few years of missionary life. Then fear of the panic attacks became Anxiety 3 for me.  Another example may be a person who was orphaned at an early age and never felt loved and accepted (Anxiety 1).  In adulthood they never felt like they fit in (Anxiety 2).  As a result of this they couldn’t hold down a job or keep friends.  As a result of these losses they developed anxiety attacks (Anxiety 3) that they blamed on society, or the economic situation, or the cruel culture of the job market.

Let us summarize:

Anxiety 1: Created by an unmet need in the early years of life.

Anxiety 2: Created by a stressful life situation that triggers the pain of Anxiety 1.

Anxiety 3: Created by a need to avoid the heavy pain of facing Anxiety 1, and instead focus the cause for our fear on something present-day, more tangible, and “safe.”

If our anxiety were a tree, Anxiety 1 would be the roots, Anxiety 2 the branches and Anxiety 3 the fruit. As you know, you don’t destroy a tree by picking its fruit. The roots must be exposed and extracted.  How do you get to the roots?  I have hopefully outlined this process in this brief booklet. Use it as a guide. God’s love will provide you with safety to face all your fears, all your unmet needs, as well as all your inadequacy. The only way to resolve your fears is to face them.  God’s love casts out all fear (I John 4:18).

God will turn all your anxiety into an opportunity to have greater communion and fellowship with Him. Let Him into your heart’s deepest fears. He is able to do exceedingly above and beyond all we could imagine or think!