Overcoming Worry and Anxiety
(week 05/03)
Olubi Johnson
This week our article is on overcoming worry and anxiety.
Worry and anxiety are very commonplace in the church even though Jesus expressly told us not to worry.
Mathew 6:25-34 (NIV): “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Why is it then that so many Christians worry?
The two root causes of worry are: prayerlessness and disobedience.
Regular, deep prayer in the spirit with petition, supplication and thanksgiving is what will cause the peace of God to keep our hearts and minds from worry and anxiety.
Philippians 4:6-7 (NIV): 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.
Disobedience hinders prayer and so opens the door to worry.
I John 3:21-24 (NIV): Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
So to overcome worry and anxiety develop a regular daily habit of prayer in the spirit and daily obedience to God by the spirit.
