The Answer to Fighting Anxiety and Identifying the Core

I’ve been struggling with anxiety for as long as I can remember. But in the past two years, I’ve been learning how to fight it. It’s been a success and every day has become easier. I don’t give myself any of the credit but Christ because without Him, I would lose the fight every time. In this post, I want to share with you how I fight against anxiety. The things that will be exposed are going to shock you because they sure shocked me when I learned the source and cause of it. So, let’s jump right into it.

What is Anxiety?

I was around 16 years old when I first started hearing the word, ‘anxiety’. I didn’t understand it, at all. However, I hung around many that used this word and I pinched out that they have similar reactions as I did. And because of them, I was able to understand the context of what it can possibly be and identifying that I, too, struggle with it. There was a season when I surrounded myself with one particular friend and she had a lot of ‘anxiety attacks’. I then asked her how she knew? She started listing all her fears, worries, depressions, stress, and everything she felt that she can’t succeed at or do. The more I’ve become aware of this word the more I recognized how flooded my life is with it.

So, here it goes.

What is anxiety, really? I want to take a look at a few descriptions that I came across throughout my fight against it. These definitions helped me understand the symptoms but not the cause. We can start with the most common, the definition from the dictionary and go from there.

Dictionary

1. Distress or uneasiness of mind caused by fear of danger or misfortune.
2. Earnest but tense desire; eagerness.

Desiring God

1. Being anxious.

Medical News Today

1. Anxiety disorders occur when a person regularly feels disproportionate levels of distress, worry, or fear over an emotional trigger.

I’ve come across a dozen of articles discussing anxiety. Many of the secular articles tell you that it’s a disorder and there aren’t any cures for it. It’s a mental illness that you just have to put up with. The urban dictionary which I refuse to add the exact description had a definition that went along the lines as, “a thing that you can never get rid of.” Many secular doctors and articles would give you a resolution of prescribed medicine to help control the emotions. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association, anxiety is normal. ADAA suggests that anyone struggling with anxiety is normal but battling with a mental issue.

Don’t Deceive Yourself

So, here is what I’ve come to know about this illness. Anxiety, fear, depression, worry, and stress are all lack of not trusting the faithfulness of God. I know, I know, many of my friends and readers would say, ‘No, I trust God. I trust Him with all my being.”

Please, don’t deceive yourself, it’s harder to say it then actually believing and trusting God is in control. When I was in the battle with anxiety, I said the same thing. I then found myself trying to seek a cure in certain drugs or activities just to occupy my mind and emotions. However, this is just another way of describing dishonesty.

The answer may seem so simple, but the application requires a lot of work. What I’ve come to know is something deeper. Deeper at the core of the heart. When our hearts are weighed down by the anxious heart, work is the last thing we want. We seek for rest, not work. What our hearts really require is sanctification.

When we say, “I trust God”, we know the faithfulness of God’s work in His people. We trust his faithfulness of transforming us into the image of His Son. This includes what goes on in our mind and hearts. We can’t just acknowledge trusting God. We must ask ourselves what that looks like and whether we are putting it into practice.

The Core Issue

How does trusting God’s faithfulness look like? Peter’s answer is simple, humbleness. Does God tell us the cure? Absolutely, right here. In these three verses, 1 Peter 5:5B-7. Peter speaks of casting all your anxiety, fear, worries, and depression as the expression of “humble yourself under the mighty hand of God.” This is a decision we make, an action that mirrors obedience to God’s call for humility.

“‘God Resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’ Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.”

1 Peter 5:5B-7

The answer to an anxious heart, is a painful answer, PRIDE.

You see, if I were to ask you, do you struggle with anxiety, stress, worry, and discouragement? Your answer would be yes, that you do!

However, pride is never the first thing that comes to mind when answering these questions. Psychologists would say that the core issue is that we think too low of ourselves and that we must think highly.

But Our God says something else through Peter. He proclaims that HE is the greatest physician of our hearts. He is the only ONE who accurately knows the deepest parts of a man’s heart and soul. The mighty God, who inspired Scripture tells us, straight forward, that the answer to the anxious heart is to humble ourselves, and you humble yourself by casting your cares upon Him.

Let It Go

Let it go, friend, the pride needs to go. Humble your anxious heart and let it cry out to God. Beg him for sanctification. You cannot control your worries, anxiety, depression, and stress. Let the pain and energy of pride go. God’s Word clarifies the answer, reassuring that he knows your situation perfectly and still he is on his throne, in control.

If you agree that God is all knowing, in control, and proclaim full trust in him but still face anxiety, depression, worry, fear, and stress, you are actually showing unbelief about believing the faithfulness of God. You really are saying that he has no control over the troubles of the heart.

Whether we like to admit it or not, when our hearts are anxious what we are really saying to God is, “I trust me, more than I trust YOU with me. I trust me, to take care of me more than I trust YOU to take care of me.”

This is why the Holy Spirit tells us through Peter that we must humble ourselves and cast our cares unto God. Let it go. Let the pride go and humble yourself. Until we stop thinking that he really doesn’t understand or not in control, our hearts will never change. We must put away our pride. We must shut ourselves down with humility.

Let this sink in, “God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.” The core of our troubled hearts is pride and the answer to that is repentance from pride in humility.