1638 The Cure For Anxiety

Statistics show over 40 million adults in the US currently struggle with anxiety. Anxiety is a feeling of fear, dread and uneasiness. It is a general worry over something, anything, and nothing, all at once. And did you know, the cure for this is literally in your Bible? For real, there’s a section in my Bible in Matthew chapter 6 titled “The Cure For Anxiety.” Even better, these words are direct quotes from Jesus! Wow … we should probably read that, shouldn’t we?

But not just read it … Receive it … Believe it. Jesus does not want you to go through your life worried! Matthew 6: 25, Jesus says, “Do not worry about your life.” The verses that follow are a shift in mindset from worry and anxiety to peace and confidence.

In a study called the Legacy Project, 1,200 senior citizens were interviewed and asked about the meaning of life. And get this, the overall theme from people who have lived longer than me are saying as they near the end of their lives they share the same regret. They wish they hadn’t spend much of their lifetime worrying. Wasted time on worry was their biggest regret.

Can’t you and I who have life and breath and purpose today learn from their regrets? Their advice was simple and direct: Worry is an enormous waste of your precious and limited lifetime.

That’s true for all of us, but especially for a girl who loves and trusts Jesus. For someone who is told time and time again in scripture of their value and worth. We look at the birds in the sky who aren’t freaking out because their heavenly father feeds them, and aren’t we much more valuable than the birds? Don’t you think God will take care of you too? Look at how God cares for the wildflowers in the fields dressing them in such beauty, don’t you know he will do the same and more for you?

Matthew 6: 34 MSG “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.

Could this be the cure for anxiety?

A person who went through much more in life than I have said, “Think of the beauty still left around you and be happy.” Who said that? That was Anne Frank. A young girl who’s family lived during the holocaust under the most extreme conditions. if Anne Frank could think of the beauty still left around her and be happy, don’t you believe you can take a look at your world today and see what you have left and choose to be happy too?

But instead, what we often do is we look at what we have left and we worry. We worry when that too will fall apart. We worry if it will come to an end. We worry if something will go wrong. And ultimately we miss the beauty still left all around us and instead of being happy, we are worried.

Are you spending the precious days of your beautiful life worried?

You have a God who loves you wildly. His care for you is unlimited and his power is unfathomable. He has the ability to take care of any situation you are worried about today and he has the care for you personally to actually show up and do it.

What are you worried about? Why are you wasting your precious lifetime worrying about these things? Are they guaranteed to happen anyway? Will it even matter in 5 years? Is your worrying making it any better at all?

Here’s what God is doing today. He’s showing up right in the middle of your mess, in the middle of your worry and he is saying, HEY GIVE YOUR ATTENTION TO ME TODAY. Look at me. Look at the beauty still left around you, I put it there.