Help, I’m Anxious! (Part 1)
Anxiety is not easy to define, but we all knows what it feels like. When you’re anxious, you feel stressed, like a heavy weight upon your chest. You feel crushed, like you can’t make a mistake. You feel afraid, like you want to run away—but you don’t know what you’re running from, or where you would run to. You feel alone, scared, vulnerable, weak. You feel worried and your mind is flooded with questions. “What if I’m not good enough? What if they don’t like me? What if I can’t find work? What if my family gets sick? What if I can’t afford to get married, buy a house, have kids? What if I make a mistake? What if a terrible accident happens? What if I make the wrong choice?” Sometimes, when it gets really bad, you feel like you’re about to die, like you can’t breathe because you’re so panicked and paralyzed.
In some measure, anxiety is part of everyone’s experience. For some of us, anxiety is the background noise to life, the constant hum in the ears, an ever-present pressure. For others, anxiety is a like a fifty-pound weight around the neck, dragging them into the ground. Some are anxious about getting the best opportunities. Others are anxious about just keeping up. Most everyone is anxious about their loved ones getting hurt. And everyone has seasons when they wonder if they’ll even make it to the next day.
But, the question I want to ask is, “Does God care about our anxieties?” More specifically, does the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news of His death and resurrection, have anything to say to us about our anxieties? Yes. Absolutely. The gospel is good news to anxious hearts, for when we trust God as God, anxiety melts to peace in Jesus Christ.
What are you anxious about?
A good place to start addressing our anxieties is to ask, “Soul, what are you anxious about?” Another way to ask it is, “What are you worried about losing? What are you anxious to get?”
Maybe you’re anxious about your parents getting sick, being killed by work, or if COVID will ever end. Maybe you’re anxious about dating, or marriage, or kids, or family strife. Maybe you’re anxious about church events, media bias, social ills. Assuredly, some of these anxieties are motivated by love for God and for others. But that’s not the kind of anxiety this post will be covering; this post is addressing the everyday anxieties we face.
Why are you anxious?
A follow question is, “Soul, why are you anxious?” In other words, if anxiety is the fire, what is the fuel?
In Matthew 6:25, Jesus says this:
Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
Jesus says: don’t be anxious—even about the most basic things of life: food, drink, body, clothing. Why? Because life is much more than just those things. Life is about loving God, loving others, being with God’s people, learning, growing, etc. So, in a sense, Jesus says, “Look at the big picture!”
Then, Jesus beings his first illustration in verse 26:
Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
The birds eat whatever is in the ground. They don’t have pantries or snack drawers for the winter. They’re not anxious about their next meal. Why? Because our Heavenly Father feeds them. Jesus continues:
Are you not of more value than they?
What do you think? Are you worth more than the birds? Yes. Absolutely. Every one of us is worth much more than birds because we matter much more to God, our Heavenly Father. He cares and provides for the birds; why would we doubt that He would ever provide for us?
Jesus continues in verse 27:
And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”
Can anyone make himself live longer by worrying? No. Can anyone make himself taller by worrying? No. We don’t have that kind of power. In Luke 12:25–26, Jesus puts it this way:
“And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life’s span? If then you cannot do even a very little thing, why do you worry about other matters?
In comparison to feeding all the birds of the world, adding a single hour to our lives is actually a very little thing. So, Jesus is saying, “If you can’t even do a tiny thing by your anxiety, why are you anxious about the big things like food, drink, clothing? You have no control. You’re not in charge. It doesn’t depend upon you.”
The Illusion of Control
There’s the first answer to the question, “Why are we anxious?” We are anxious because we think we are in control. As David Powlison writes:
Worriers act as if they might be able to control the uncontrollable. That’s something central to the problem of worry. It’s the illusion that we can control things. (David Powlison, Don’t Worry, 58.)
If we live under the illusion that we are in control, it is guaranteed that we will be anxious.
Let me illustrate. Never in my life have I woken up and worried, “Oh man, how am I going to feed all the birds of the earth today?” Why not? Because I don’t think that’s my responsibility. I easily admit it’s not something that I control.
But what if I did think it were my responsibility to feed all the birds of the earth? Instant stress. I could rely upon myself and come up with a plan: I’ll get a plane, put a lot of bird seed and worms on it, and then drop the food from the sky. But man, I’d have to fly really fast to cover the whole world. And can a plane even carry that much food? Maybe I could get a lot of planes, with a lot of food. But what about all the baby birds that can’t leave their nest to get food? Should I ask Amazon to find all the nests and deliver? Oh, but what about penguins! They eat fish, so I’d have to get some boats…
I could plan. But I would fail. And every day, as I think of all the birds that have died because I failed to feed them, I would grow more and more anxious. Why? Because I’m trying to do the impossible.
But this is exactly what we do when we’re anxious. Sinful anxiety is built upon this lie: it’s all up to me. I have to do it. The problem is that we’re trying to accomplish something that is literally impossible for us! I can’t feed the birds of the earth; I’m just a human! You can’t ultimately provide food, drink, or clothing for yourself; that’s your Heavenly Father’s job!
In a way, being anxious actually sort of makes sense. Our anxiety reveals that we feel like we’re trying to do what is impossible for us—and our anxiety is right!
A Vision of an Apathetic God
Jesus continues with His second illustration in verses 28–30:
And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed [clothed] like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven [to start a fire] will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
Lilies here are actually like the wildflowers you see on the side of the road. No human planted them there. No human fertilized them and lovingly watered them to make them grow. They just pop up, blossom in dazzling beauty, wither, then die, soon to be burned in a camp fire.
God clothes such weeds in splendor and beauty, but they only live for a little while. The punchline is this: “Will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” We can’t clothe the weeds like God; yet we are anxious to provide for ourselves. If you are worth more than birds to God, you are certainly worth more than weeds! But if God cares enough about weeds to clothe them in beauty, will He not much more care for you?
There’s the second answer to the question, “Why are we anxious?” We are anxious because we think God doesn’t care about us.
Why We’re Anxious
So, why are we anxious? Two reasons from Matthew 6.
We are anxious because we think we are in control.
We are anxious because we think God doesn’t care for us.
We are anxious because we think we’re in control, that we are ultimately responsible for ourselves: getting food, drink, clothing; making friends, making it in life, staying healthy, persevering through the Christian life, growing in our faith, etc. We think to ourselves: “If something bad is coming, I have to prevent it.” Or, “If I want something good, I have to go and get it.” We put our world upon our shoulders; our anxiety is merely our emotions realizing, “I can’t do it!” In other words, when I am anxious, I forget God.
Second, we are anxious because we don’t think God cares for us. We think we have to care for ourselves, because if we don’t, who will? Our eyes focus on the things in front of us, the things we think we need—our health, our looks, our skills, our careers, our worth, our families, our experiences, our friends, our future, our life—and what we must do to care for ourselves. When I am anxious, I think God has forgotten me.
But what does that say about our faith in God? It reveals that when we’re anxious, we think that God is not all that powerful and is not all that loving. Lord-willing, we’ll dig into that in the next post.
Questions
What were you anxious about this week? What are you anxious about right now?
Why are you anxious about it? Because you struggle to believe that God is in control, or because you struggle to believe that God cares for you?
This material is based on a sermon prepared for Lighthouse Community Church’s Youth Group, originally preached on 2020.10.30.
Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash