Chapter 11
HIS PEACE FOR YOUR ANXIETY
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
1 PETER 5:7 NIV
99 Is the Wind Always at Your Back?
A traditional Gaelic blessing says, "May the wind be always at your back." If it is, you’re not facing your fears! You’re taking the easy way.
You are zipping along. But you’re not headed anywhere significant. To fulfill God's purpose, you must overcome substantial opposition.
Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, faced the hurricane winds of his fear of crucifixion. He said, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done" (Luke 22:42 NIV).
To reach their intended heights, airplanes take off into the wind. To follow Jesus, you must face your fears. Otherwise, you won’t even attempt a take-off. When faith, not fear, controls you, you can please God (Hebrews 11:6).
What paralyzing fear do you need to face and overcome today?
Read Acts 10.
100 Float Away Unhealthy Fear
Some fears are healthy. People instruct their children not to touch a hot stove burner. They tell them not to cross the street without looking both ways.
Reasonable fears prevent bodily injury. My car’s dashboard has more than twenty warning lights. Fear emerges when they light up!
The healthiest fear of all is the fear of God. Such fear is awe-inspired reverence of Him resulting in submission, worship, and obedience (Hebrews 12:28–29).
When your fear of God dwindles, unhealthy fear takes its place. You worry about future events that might harm you physically or emotionally. Doing so harms you physically and emotionally now.
Unhealthy fears make you sick, shorten your life, and endlessly torment you. When I leave the kitchen, my fear of the red-hot burner dissolves.
However, an unhealthy fear of failure can spur me endlessly. Like an insane cowboy, it rides my back 24/7.
Unhealthy fear is God’s warning signal. The object of your trust needs replacing. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5–6 NIV).
The more time you spend in fellowship with God and reading the Bible, the better you get to know Him. It becomes easier to trust Him. Trust in God displaces unhealthy fear.
Trust in God or unhealthy fear can fill your life. But both can’t fill you at the same time.
What unhealthy fears have trust in God enabled you to overcome?
Read Acts 11.
101 Fear and Faith Are Contagious
Rubeola travels faster than lies on the internet! It was the virus behind the measles outbreak in the United States in 2019.
Measles is highly contagious. It can cause serious physical problems including death. The same is true of the COVID-19 virus.
My parents encouraged my brothers and me to share. Full disclosure—we shared our diseases better than our toys.
When the first brother got measles and chicken pox, inevitably, we all did. That was before vaccines.
More than diseases are contagious. In the context of instructions to Israel for going to war, we read, “Then the officers shall add, ‘Is anyone afraid or fainthearted? Let him go home so that his fellow soldiers will not become disheartened too’" (Deuteronomy 20:8 NIV).
Did you get that? Fear is contagious. Children look at their parents to see how they react to situations. If the parent projects fear, children quickly join them.
Your fear spreads like panic in a movie theater when someone yells, “Fire!” God tells Joshua, the commander of Israel’s army, four times in Joshua 1 to be strong and courageous. He would set the pace.
Faith is an “I’ve got this through Christ who strengthens me” attitude (Philippians 4:13). Such trust is contagious.
I saw it demonstrated forty-five years ago when I accompanied college students who shared their faith in Christ with other students. Their faith was contagious.
They expected God to provide the strength to take a stand for Him. He did. Their example helped me be a witness despite my fear.
Fear and faith are both contagious. What will you pass on?
Others can see both your fear and faith. Which will they see today?
Read Acts 12.
102 Anger Bone Connected to the Fear Bone
A man once turned left without paying attention to oncoming traffic. I couldn’t avoid hitting his car. Fear transitioned to anger in a nanosecond.
My automatic response before I hit the car was “You jerk!” I launched it with one hundred megatons of venom. My rage exploded.
But it subsided quickly enough for me to be civil when I talked to him. Fear often pushes my anger button. It happens before my emotional self-control button engages.
I’m not successful in controlling that kind of anger. It’s a blip on the behavioral radar screen. It usually quickly disappears.
Significant amounts of anger in America are the perpetual, simmering kind. Students are angry about school shootings. They fear it could happen in their schools.
They’re angry about global warming. They fear there won’t be a future for them.
Frequently, adults display unbridled disdain for leaders and members of the opposing political party. In 2016 almost 70 percent of our citizens were angry at the opposing party’s Presidential candidate.1 They feared what their agenda would be.
How much American anger results from hyper-anxiety and fear? The United States is the most anxious country in the world.2
Psychologist Robert Leahy wrote that the average child today experiences the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient back in the 1950s.3
The remedy for fear is trust in God’s sovereignty. Is fear increasing because Christianity’s influence is waning in the United States? I think so.
You’re free to live as if God doesn’t exist. But you’re not free from the negative consequences of that belief system.
I’m not in control of earthly events, but I’m not fearful because God is. “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10 NIV).
How does realizing the anger, fear, and faith connections help you understand yourself and others? Read Acts 13.
103 How Can You Dial Down Anger?
Angry outbursts are an expanding epidemic in the United States. They are spreading like superbug bacterial infections.
You see it in the political sphere. In mass shootings. On the highways. In churches. In homes. In the mirror.
Like gasoline fumes, your anger ignites almost instantly. The match could be fear or inconvenience. It might be because someone doesn’t agree with you.
Left unattended, it foams and bubbles. Eventually, it boils over and scalds everyone around it. Today might be that day. Wine improves with age. But anger ages like dead fish.
Anger makes smart people do dumb things. It causes normally kind people to do regrettable things.
Turned inward, it produces depression. Turned outward, with equal ease, it scorches enemies and loved ones.
Like a mind-altering drug, it supplies an immediate burst of power. But that energy rarely accomplishes anything good (James 1:20). As we wise up, we anger down.
Only the godless in heart cherish anger (Job 36:13). The wise unload anger as quickly as possible (Ephesians 4:26). They drain the anger swamp (Ephesians 4:31, Colossians 3:8). When you anger up, you cause others to do the same (Proverbs 15:18).
Anger spreads like flu. Those slow on the anger draw are better than the mighty (Proverbs 16:32). They don’t keep company with those given to anger (Proverbs 22:24) because such behavior leads to transgression (Proverbs 29:22).
Pressing angry people is like beating a hornet’s nest with your hand (Proverbs 30:33). They will sting you severely.
Anger is repeatedly associated with ungodly behavior (2 Corinthians 12:20, Galatians 5:20, Colossians 3:8). As you wise up, anger down! Stopping the expanding anger epidemic begins with you.
What scars has your anger left on you and others? What steps can you take to diminish your angry outbursts? Read Acts 14.
104 Border Security
Walls have a place. God designed skin as “border security.” It protects you from attacking ultraviolet rays, bacteria, and viruses.
You treat wounds with an antibiotic. You stick a suitable bandage on them. You don’t put a huge bandage on a paper cut. You don’t place a small one on a 2-inch-long surgical wound. You evaluate the size of the threat. You respond accordingly.
Security is never total. There’s a way around every wall. You get flu and colds despite the skin border wall’s best efforts. You inoculate yourself by touching your nose, eyes, and mouth with germ-covered hands.
You purchase home security systems. You acquire computer security software, security cameras, and medical alert devices. You install smoke alarms and one-way wide-angle peepholes.
All these have their place. But none provide perfect peace. Despite your best efforts, you’re still vulnerable.
We lock our doors at my house. But that won’t stop someone committed to harming us. I don’t worry about it. I do what I can. I trust God with the rest.
You can purchase security devices with quarters. “In God, we trust” appears on all of them in small print.
Trust in God is a border wall that brings security and peace that devices can’t. “Don’t be anxious about anything, but in every situation, 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 4:6–7 NIV).
How has trust in God brought you peace during this last week?
Read Acts 15.
105 Crippling Anxiety
Anxiety isn’t terrible. Without emotional tension, life would be boring. Like watching grass grow or paint dry. A dash of it makes watching your favorite team play an enjoyable experience. You don’t know who will win.
Like salt in your food, a little anxiety is good. But too much of it can kill you. Crippling anxiety brings headaches, ulcers, heart attacks, and other physical problems.
It wears out your body prematurely without accomplishing anything positive. It reduces your ability to think clearly. It distracts you when you pray. It restricts your ability to worship God.
So, how do you reduce crippling anxiety? As surely as exercise increases strength, love reduces anxiety. “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear….” (1 John 4:18 NIV).
A fear-filled life is like an empty drinking glass. You can remove the air in the glass by displacing it with water. Likewise, you can remove fear by displacing it with God’s love.
“He who didn’t spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32 NIV).
Trusting God to care for you isn’t like instant coffee—add hot water and stir. Trust grows over time. God’s word, the working of the Holy Spirit, and other believers who model it nurture it.
There’s no better time to begin than now. Turn your anxieties into prayers (Philippians 4:6–7). Unload your anxiety on Him (1 Peter 5:7). He takes care of you as faithfully as He feeds the birds of the air (Matthew 6:26).
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, 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” (Phil. 4:6–7 NIV).
Trusting God isn’t an escape from reality. It enables you to confront reality most effectively.
Face your fears. Stand up to crippling anxiety. Walk toward it, even though your heart is racing. You’ll discover what you feared isn’t so intimidating anymore.
What anxieties do you need to unload on God right now? Read Acts 16.
106 Do Right Despite Fear
Our earthly legacy (and heavenly reward) depends on doing right despite fear. President Abraham Lincoln issued an executive order. As of January 1, 1863, the legal status of African Americans in the South would change. From slave to free.
His action enraged the Confederate States of America. But it was the right thing to do. He’s remembered as one of our greatest Presidents.
The high point of President Ronald Reagan’s presidency came on June 12, 1987. He said, “Tear down that wall, Mr. Gorbachev.”
Advisors wanted to cut those words from the speech. They were afraid of the backlash they could create. He courageously spoke the words. The Berlin Wall came down on November 9, 1989.
Israelites returned to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon. They wanted to rebuild the altar. But they had to overcome the fear of the people around them to pull it off.
“Despite their fear of the peoples around them, they built the altar on its foundation and sacrificed burnt offerings on it to the LORD, both the morning and evening sacrifices” (Ezra 3:3 NIV). Acting despite fear emboldened them. They took the next step. They rebuilt the temple with less fear.
I’m often unlike Lincoln and Reagan and the Israelites returning from captivity. I fail to follow through on my best ideas and intentions.
I lack the courage to turn them into reality. I fear what others would say or do if I failed.
I live too often in the perceived safety that knows neither defeat nor victory. I avoid darts, arrows, and missiles of criticism that way. I also fall short of fulfilling my potential.
I’m trying to climb out of that dark well and live in the light of God’s truth despite fear. Would you like to join me?
Specifically, how has being afraid hindered you from bearing more spiritual fruit? Read Acts 17.