In my early twenties (I'm over fifty now), I struggled severely with anxiety and obsessive thoughts. These two things often go together, as anyone badly afflicted with anxiety can tell you. In my case, my anxiety led to cluster panic attacks, insomnia, even swallowing problems. It was awful. I also began to go 'round and 'round in my mind, obsessing over becoming some terrible sort of person: a serial killer, or insane, or sexually perverse, etc. The worse the thing, the more I'd obsess about it, fearful that I would become such a person. For hours on end, I'd argue within myself over the horrible potential for evil that lay within me. This would lead inevitably to panic attacks and worse insomnia, the anxiety and obsessiveness feeding off of each other in a vicious, unending cycle.
I arrived at the place where I couldn't bear what was going on inside of me alone anymore. I'd worried that if anyone knew how "crazy" I was, what anxiety and turmoil was within me, they'd be horrified and repulsed. So, I'd kept my struggle with fear to myself, hiding it as best I could. Finally, though, I let it all out to a person I could trust, a Christian person, who gave me spiritual rather than merely psychological advice. I am forever grateful that this was the tack the person took with me, not advising drugs and the therapist's couch, but the eternal wisdom of the Great Physician. Their advice moved me into God's word, into the remedy God has for anxiety and obsessive thinking, and into the freedom and fellowship with Him that taking His remedy produced. I'd like to share this remedy with you in the hope that it will aid others of you struggling under the dark, crushing bondage to fear to win free of it.
God's chief aim in making us is His glorification. (1 Corinthians 10:31; 1 Corinthians 6:20; Romans 15:6-7; 1 Peter 2:9, etc.) All of Creation is made ultimately for this purpose (Psalms 19:1; Psalms 86:8-10; John 12:28, etc.). But in our case, God fulfills this aim in and through us by causing us to know Him (John 17:3; Philippians 3:7-11), and in knowing Him, to love Him (Matthew 22:36-38; 1 Corinthians 13:1-3; 1 John 4:16-19), and in loving Him to delight in Him (Psalms 16:11; John 15:11; Romans 5:11; Romans 14:17, etc.). From this delight, this joy, we take in loving fellowship with God, we offer the highest and most sincere worship and praise of our Maker and Father.
God, then, acts in our lives to move us into a deep, rich, gratifying knowledge and experience of Himself. (1 Corinthians 1:9; 2 Corinthians 13:14; 1 John 1:3) His commands to avoid evil and seek the good are given, among other reasons, so that our fellowship with Him is unhindered by sin. He insists we live His way so that we might fully enjoy communion with Him.
When God, then, shows us the way to inner peace and rest, to a sound and stable thought-life, to freedom from selfishness, fear, and lust, He does so always with a view to drawing us into a deeper knowledge of, and into richer fellowship with, Himself. We can make all sorts of changes to our thinking and behaviour without God, but only God's way to freedom takes us deeper into Him. Modern psychology and psychotherapeutic drugs, self-help strategies, New Age "deeper spirituality" gurus - none of these will produce both freedom from fear and a closer walk with one's Maker. Certainly, these avenues of self-change will not result in greater glory to God, which is the fundamental reason for our existence.
I make note of this because God's help to us all is found ultimately in Himself, in bringing us to a place of complete submission to, and dependence upon, Him. Modern psychology, however, directs the hurting person to fixate upon themselves, to understand themselves and their hurts, to shrink from personal responsibility for their thoughts and feelings. But in gazing inward at oneself, a clear and full view of God is necessarily sacrificed. One cannot look in two directions at once, after all. The freedom and joy of seeing, knowing, and communing with God cannot happen so long as one is occupied with oneself.
And so, in God's word, we are never urged to navel gaze, to introspect carefully upon ourselves. Instead, we are told to fix our attention upon God.
2 Corinthians 3:18
18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
Hebrews 12:2-3
2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Colossians 3:1-3
1 Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.
3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Here, then, is the first principle of freedom: Conformity to Focus.
We will be shaped, to one degree or another, by that upon which we focus our attention. Modern advertising rests squarely upon this fact, companies spending billions every year to attract our attention so that they might influence and shape our buying choices. If we want God's peace and rest, found in Him, we must fix our eyes upon Him and His truth. But in looking to God we must look away from ourselves, from the World, from the lies of the devil, forsaking them for God and His truth consistently and persistently. If we look back-and-forth between God and these things, we will be the "double-minded" person of whom the apostle James wrote, "unstable in all their ways." (James 1:8) As Christ pointed out, we can't plow a field while looking behind us. (Luke 9:62)
In the matter of fear, of anxiety and obsessiveness, this principle of Conformity to Focus means that, when anxiety rises within, look away from it to God and His truth. Fix your mind upon Him and what He says, not upon your fear and the worries and obsessions it engenders. If you've made a habit of staring at your fears, of dwelling on them obsessively, it will take time and effort to form a new habit of looking at God and standing unmoved upon His truth about you and Him. But if you follow God's direction in this, you will take a big step forward into freedom from fear - and into a much deeper, better relationship with your Heavenly Father.
I will share the other steps/principles to freedom from fear in later posts.
I arrived at the place where I couldn't bear what was going on inside of me alone anymore. I'd worried that if anyone knew how "crazy" I was, what anxiety and turmoil was within me, they'd be horrified and repulsed. So, I'd kept my struggle with fear to myself, hiding it as best I could. Finally, though, I let it all out to a person I could trust, a Christian person, who gave me spiritual rather than merely psychological advice. I am forever grateful that this was the tack the person took with me, not advising drugs and the therapist's couch, but the eternal wisdom of the Great Physician. Their advice moved me into God's word, into the remedy God has for anxiety and obsessive thinking, and into the freedom and fellowship with Him that taking His remedy produced. I'd like to share this remedy with you in the hope that it will aid others of you struggling under the dark, crushing bondage to fear to win free of it.
God's chief aim in making us is His glorification. (1 Corinthians 10:31; 1 Corinthians 6:20; Romans 15:6-7; 1 Peter 2:9, etc.) All of Creation is made ultimately for this purpose (Psalms 19:1; Psalms 86:8-10; John 12:28, etc.). But in our case, God fulfills this aim in and through us by causing us to know Him (John 17:3; Philippians 3:7-11), and in knowing Him, to love Him (Matthew 22:36-38; 1 Corinthians 13:1-3; 1 John 4:16-19), and in loving Him to delight in Him (Psalms 16:11; John 15:11; Romans 5:11; Romans 14:17, etc.). From this delight, this joy, we take in loving fellowship with God, we offer the highest and most sincere worship and praise of our Maker and Father.
God, then, acts in our lives to move us into a deep, rich, gratifying knowledge and experience of Himself. (1 Corinthians 1:9; 2 Corinthians 13:14; 1 John 1:3) His commands to avoid evil and seek the good are given, among other reasons, so that our fellowship with Him is unhindered by sin. He insists we live His way so that we might fully enjoy communion with Him.
When God, then, shows us the way to inner peace and rest, to a sound and stable thought-life, to freedom from selfishness, fear, and lust, He does so always with a view to drawing us into a deeper knowledge of, and into richer fellowship with, Himself. We can make all sorts of changes to our thinking and behaviour without God, but only God's way to freedom takes us deeper into Him. Modern psychology and psychotherapeutic drugs, self-help strategies, New Age "deeper spirituality" gurus - none of these will produce both freedom from fear and a closer walk with one's Maker. Certainly, these avenues of self-change will not result in greater glory to God, which is the fundamental reason for our existence.
I make note of this because God's help to us all is found ultimately in Himself, in bringing us to a place of complete submission to, and dependence upon, Him. Modern psychology, however, directs the hurting person to fixate upon themselves, to understand themselves and their hurts, to shrink from personal responsibility for their thoughts and feelings. But in gazing inward at oneself, a clear and full view of God is necessarily sacrificed. One cannot look in two directions at once, after all. The freedom and joy of seeing, knowing, and communing with God cannot happen so long as one is occupied with oneself.
And so, in God's word, we are never urged to navel gaze, to introspect carefully upon ourselves. Instead, we are told to fix our attention upon God.
2 Corinthians 3:18
18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
Hebrews 12:2-3
2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Colossians 3:1-3
1 Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.
3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Here, then, is the first principle of freedom: Conformity to Focus.
We will be shaped, to one degree or another, by that upon which we focus our attention. Modern advertising rests squarely upon this fact, companies spending billions every year to attract our attention so that they might influence and shape our buying choices. If we want God's peace and rest, found in Him, we must fix our eyes upon Him and His truth. But in looking to God we must look away from ourselves, from the World, from the lies of the devil, forsaking them for God and His truth consistently and persistently. If we look back-and-forth between God and these things, we will be the "double-minded" person of whom the apostle James wrote, "unstable in all their ways." (James 1:8) As Christ pointed out, we can't plow a field while looking behind us. (Luke 9:62)
In the matter of fear, of anxiety and obsessiveness, this principle of Conformity to Focus means that, when anxiety rises within, look away from it to God and His truth. Fix your mind upon Him and what He says, not upon your fear and the worries and obsessions it engenders. If you've made a habit of staring at your fears, of dwelling on them obsessively, it will take time and effort to form a new habit of looking at God and standing unmoved upon His truth about you and Him. But if you follow God's direction in this, you will take a big step forward into freedom from fear - and into a much deeper, better relationship with your Heavenly Father.
I will share the other steps/principles to freedom from fear in later posts.
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