The depth we know God is the depth we will be able to trust God. Overcoming anxiety isn’t about pushing away your feelings, ignoring them, or treating what you are going through like nothing. Overcoming anxiety hinders on our ability to trust God with our hearts, pain, concerns, situation, and justice.
When something feels uncertain, or beyond our reach, we start to feel anxious in our bodies. Feeling anxious may show up as (depending on the level and not limited to) pacing, fatigue, nausea, irritability, digestion issues, or headache.
Our bodies’ response to the emotions we are experiencing and feelings we have tells us that our sympathetic nervous system has kicked on, your fight-or-flight response controlled by the autonomic nervous system. This system in our body that we don’t consciously control regulates things like your heart rate, breathing, and urination.
It’s also the system that reacts when you are under a physical threat. The autonomic nervous system produces your fight-or-flight response, which is designed to help you defend yourself or run away from danger. Therefore, when we are talking about overcoming anxiety, we recognize two things:
- We are carrying a belief about God.
- We are physically experiencing this belief in our bodies.
The anxiety and anxiousness we may feel is an outward expression of what’s happening inside. Anxiety is secondary, and the effect of the inner turmoil racing through us. When our focus becomes solely on overcoming anxiety, we can miss the heart change and transformation God wants to take us through.
Anxiety is a symptom and not a root. Can anxiety be the root of physical discomfort? Yes! Remember, though, there is a root that causes anxiety, and that anxiety causes physical discomfort.
Now, this is about the time we want to start adding in the scriptures dealing with overcoming anxiety.
The word of God is clear about how to handle our cares, what to do with them, and how to get through feeling anxious.
However, I want to discuss something that is even more important. I want us to think about these two questions:
- What do you believe about God?
- What do you believe that God believes about you?
Get my Spiritual Growth Framework coaching program to go more in-depth with this topic.
It’s hard to “cast our cares on God” when we don’t think God cares. We can say those things, but do we believe in our heart He does?
There are times when we allow what we feel to dictate what is the truth.
For example, I know God says He will never leave me, but why do I feel like He has? When we feel something like that, it is quite often that we have left God.
So is overcoming anxiety merely memorizing scripture?
No, it’s also becoming embodied with the word and living it out in our daily lives. Our habits are formed around what we love. What we love drives our habits. Therefore, we ask ourselves, what do we love that is driving these habits?
I know these feelings because I have lived them and will go through them depending on the season of my life. When I start to feel a specific way, I try to get in the habit of asking myself, “Do I trust God here?” This allows me to address and be gentle with the situation.
We will never be able to comprehend the depth of God’s love for us, but we can start with learning to receive and live in His love one inch at a time.
Psalm 55:22 says, “Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.”
This is a promise from God. One that we can trust about His character and nature. He will sustain us, and we do not have to be shaken. It doesn’t mean we won’t be shaken. This means we don’t have to live shaken.
Overcoming anxiety starts with knowing who God is to you and what you believe He believes about you.
There are many different aids, supplements, workouts, foods, and therapy that can help. Still, without our sustaining power of Christ, our character doesn’t change; everything else is just bandages covering up a wound that cuts deep.
We can read the word of God and live it out practically, which also, at the same time, helps our nervous system to calm down.
My Spiritual Growth Framework coaching program would be great for you if you want to know how to do this practically on a deeper level.
