Love, Anxiety and Headache

And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things. Luk 10:41  

Fears or Obsessions?

I’ve had a persistent headache for a week now. But we also have been without power for a week! Probably the darkness touched a raw nerve somewhere in my mind.

Yet just across the road - at our neighbours’ houses - the lights glimmer like stars the whole night. And it has felt eerie sometimes, with our darkened house standing out like a phantom.

So it’s been an anxious week. And I thought (in those long, long dark nights) about anxiety. And I wondered - why is worrying – to some people – almost like second nature – but to others it hardly leaves a scratch?

But since childhood I have ‘known’ anxiety. At school (I remember) I used to worry about missing school, about my reports, and about my compositions. I was sad a lot too. But to the rest of the students school was like a prison, a sore punishment. They burned their books to ashes after school, and then they went home laughing. I kept mine. To me school was like heaven.

So I have learned (and accepted) that certain people – and of a certain disposition – are much more susceptible to these anxiety bouts than others – the sickly lot, the contemplative lot (introvert), the book lot, and the perfectionist -

Of course in extroverts it is the fear of silence that can drive them to start seeing things. Peter the disciple was such a one extrovert. He was highly driven, seeing things others didn’t see, and attempting things others wouldn’t dare. It was anxiety that made Peter to begin to sink…and for anxiety Peter forgot Jesus completely (denied him).

‘But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not’. If it wasn’t for Jesus praying for Peter he should’ve lost it – and us too who believe.

But I have prayed for you, and that neither will love sift you.

When Anxiety and Love can Result in Disaster

I have known guys who wouldn’t touch a woman for fear of blowing it, and, unconsciously, they have gone ahead and blown it even before it started… and yes such anxieties can qualify as clinical (remember biologist Andrew Steyn in God’s Must Be Crazy 1, and where he attempts to explain to Kate his tendency to be uncoordinated in her presence, but accidentally and repeatedly knocks over a number of objects in the process?). Of course that is psychological!

But should a believer also believe that – or accept that?

No. Check Boaz, and check his calm demeanor, which is a believer’s dream, ‘Tarry this night, and it shall be in the morning, that if he will perform unto thee the part of a kinsman, well; let him do the kinsman's part: but if he will not do the part of a kinsman to thee, then will I do the part of a kinsman to thee, as the LORD liveth: lie down until the morning’ (Rth 3:13).  

Yet Boaz seemed perfectly at peace, as if finding a handmaiden sleeping at his feet was a normal every night occurrence!

So it is different how you believe as a believer.

Jesus Disciples too were Given to their Anxious Moments

But there is a sense in which to be a believer is also to be subject to anxiety.

·      And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have no bread. Mar 8:16 

·      Then there arose a reasoning among them, which of them should be greatest. Luk 9:46  

·      And they kept that saying with themselves, questioning one with another what the rising from the dead should mean. Mar 9:10  

·      Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled? Mar 13:4  

And that might sound like a recipe for anxiety. Probably their worry was about displeasing their master, perhaps their worry was whether he would still love them the following day. Plus the fear of rebukes can make a person to be perennially anxious. It is why some find themselves apologizing for no purpose or wrong… except the one existing in their imagination. And always it is an exaggeration -

But they don’t know it. Anxiety has made a bondage of them. And that is not the Lord’s doing but of the evil one. One is a healthy anxiety, while the other is not.

What is the Cure for Anxiety?

First, living in sin will aggravate the sense of anxiety, as we can see in David, ‘When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long’ (Psa 32:34). ‘For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned…?’ (Psa 51:3-4). But he felt different after he had repented, ‘Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile’ (Psa 32:1-2).  

So to be on God’s side is to always have a helper and a friend, especially in those ‘evil day’ moments. Also to have God’s promises at your fingertips is to know joy and peace at all times, even at night.

·      He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven. Psa 107:29-30 

·      From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Psa 61:2  

·      Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Rom 8:35  

·      Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Php 4:6-7   

And that is the peace which you can begin to enjoy even right now – if only you can call on his name without shame or fear.

(Oh the electricity has come, thanks be to God! And the headache is gone too!)