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Winning Over Worry and Anxiety, Part III

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[NOTE: Thanks to all who said they wanted to join the People Power for Jesus Group ... Many are responding. I'll set up a special email list and will reply just as soon as I can.]

“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”1

I have read how, in 1929, business tycoon J.C. Penney was in the hospital because of his severe anxiety. One night he was sure he was going to die, so he wrote farewell letters to his wife and son.

But he survived the night, and hearing singing the next morning in the chapel, felt drawn to go in. A group was singing, “God will take care of you,” after which followed Bible reading and prayer.

Penney said, “Suddenly something happened. I can’t explain it. It was a miracle. I felt as if I had been instantly lifted out of the darkness of a dungeon into warm brilliant sunlight. I felt as if I had been transported from hell to paradise. I felt the power of God as I had never felt it before.

“I realized then that I alone was responsible for all my troubles. I knew that God with his love was there to help me. From that day to this, my life has been free from worry. The most dramatic and glorious minutes of my life were those I spent in that chapel that morning.”2

Most causes of anxiety and worry lie within ourselves. At best they are triggered by outside circumstances. Only when we admit to and resolve these causes, are we free to fully surrender our worries and anxieties to God and experience his peace.

Whether this peace comes instantly or over a period of time doesn’t matter. The important truth to remember is that God is always there. His love and power are constant and available to all. As we reach out to him through the fog of our worry and damaged emotions, we discover that he is waiting to help us if only we will be totally open and honest with him, respond to his love, and give him the chance.

Every day, visualize Jesus being with you and opening yourself to receive his love, joy and peace. After resolving the causes of worry and anxiety as spelled out in Wednesday and Thursday’s Daily Encounters, the ultimate source of worry-free living is found in learning to trust God fully for every detail and in every circumstance of our life.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, again today I commit and trust my life and every circumstance in which I find myself to you. I choose to trust you regardless of my feelings. Help me so to do. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Philippians 4:6-7 (NLT).

2. S.I. McMillen, None of These Diseases (Westwood, N.J.: Fleming Revell Co., 1963), p.98.

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Winning Over Worry and Anxiety, Part II

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“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”1

An overload of worry and anxiety, like an overload of stress, is a killer. We all know that. More importantly, what we also need to know is how to win over such.

It begins with being able to see and admit our real fears, which are a basic cause behind many worries and anxieties, by facing and resolving these, and by learning to trust our life and circumstances to God, and giving our worries to him—and not taking them back. The following are other major causes of anxiety with helpful tips for winning over them.

First: If anxiety is situational; that is, caused by adverse circumstances or too much work—or not enough work, I find it helps to list all my pressures on paper. This is half the battle. I then eliminate the least important matters, work on the things I can do something about, and am learning to accept the things I cannot change and stop worrying about them.

Second: If the problem is caused by pent-up feelings, such as resentment, hurt, or anger, those feelings need to be expressed in healthy ways and resolved, otherwise they may cause ongoing worry and anxiety—or they may make you sick. If you’re nursing a grudge, if possible put things right with the person you feel hurt you, and regardless, you need to forgive them.2

Some hurt or angry feelings can be talked out with a trusted friend or counselor. Or go for a drive in your car, park in a safe place where you can be alone, lock the doors, and with the windows closed, the radio turned up loud, talk to the person who hurt you as if they were in the car with you. Express freely your true feelings toward them, and do this as many times as necessary until all the pent up feelings are dissipated. Or if it helps, go to the bedroom and cry your hurt and/or grief feelings out, or write them out as David often did in the Psalms.

One night when I was worried and couldn’t sleep, I got up and typed a letter to God sharing all my feelings with him. Within a half-hour I had released my pent-up feelings. I then read them back to God, tore up the page, went back to bed, and fell asleep immediately.

Third: Good, hard physical exercise is also helpful when you’re feeling worried or anxious. It helps burn up excess adrenalin.

Fourth: If your worry is caused by unmet emotional or spiritual needs, you can remedy this by growing in your relationship to God and others—both of which are keys to vital, worry-free living. A spiritual-growth group or a good twelve-step recovery group can be a big help for worriers. As you open up your true self to others and to God and feel their love and acceptance, you can slowly exchange feelings of fear, guilt, anger, inadequacy, anxiety, and worry for feelings of hope, confidence, peace, and love.

“Perfect love drives out fear,”3 wrote the Apostle John in the Bible. So we need to ask God not only to help us overcome our fears, but also to fill us with love. The more we love and trust God and others, the less we fear man and circumstances.

To be concluded in tomorrow’s Daily Encounter, Part III.

Suggested prayer, “Dear God, please help me to face and resolve the causes behind all my worries, cares, and anxieties. And ‘give me the courage to change the things I can change, the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference.’ Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 1 John 4:18 (NIV).

2. See Matthew 5:23-24 (NIV).

3. 1 John 4:18 (NIV).

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Winning Over Worry and Anxiety, Part I

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“Don’t worry about things—food, drink and clothes … don’t be anxious about tomorrow. God will take care of your tomorrow too. Live one day at a time.”1

It’s Monday morning. The weekend is over. The alarm clock blares out its hideous jangle and suddenly you are snapped into the world of reality. First comes the struggle to get out of bed, then the rush to get to school or work on time, and then comes the stress of trying to juggle all one’s seemingly endless responsibilities. Or just the opposite may be true for those out of work.

Is this how your week starts? And aren’t these pressures mild compared to the ones you face as the day and week wear on?

We live in a world of ever-increasing stress and worry with school, work, and family, financial, social, and relational pressures. Not many people are free from worry of some kind.

Worry and anxiety are major problems of contemporary society. In excessive amounts they can take years off your life.

Some people like to think that things don’t bother them. “No problem,” they say as they put on a brave front and reach for the aspirin or alcohol bottle to deaden their fears, worries, and anxieties.

However, it isn’t possible to deaden inner anxiety. Unresolved, it will reveal itself in many ways.

For instance, George withdraws when he is upset, hurt, or uptight. Susan talks endlessly to cover her anxiety. Bill chain smokes to avoid facing his. Harry attacks when he feels threatened. Jack dominates, and Jill procrastinates. Dennis is a constant complainer. Joan is a compulsive eater, Fred a compulsive drinker, Tom a compulsive worker, and Frank a compulsive gambler—all because of unresolved worry and anxiety.

Anxiety may also express itself in a physical way. Stuttering, abdominal pains, high blood pressure, a twitch, allergies, ulcers, nervous stomach, tension headaches—all have been named by doctors as symptoms of anxiety and worry.

Yes, sooner or later unresolved worry and anxiety will win out. When one fails to creatively talk out his worries, he will act them out in some destructive way.

Long ago the Bible pointed out that “a relaxed attitude lengthens a man’s life.”2 Jesus himself said, “So I tell you, don’t worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food, drink, and clothes…. Don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”3

And the Apostle Paul wrote, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus”4

However, it’s one thing to know about God’s peace and another thing to experience it. And as E. Stanley Jones said, “Worry is the interest we pay on tomorrow’s troubles.”

To be continued. See tomorrow’s Daily Encounter.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to come to terms with my fears, worries and anxieties, and learn how to resolve these and trust more fully in you. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Mathew 6:25 and 34 (NIV).

2. Proverbs 14:30 (NLT).

3. Matthew 6:25 and 34 (NIV).

4. Philippians 4:6-7 (NLT).

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Old Bombs

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“If you are angry, don’t sin by nursing your grudge. Don’t let the sun go down with you still angry—get over it quickly; for when you are angry you give a mighty foothold to the devil.”1

In June of 1987 workers on a building site in London hit a cast iron pipe when using a pile driver. After digging out the buried pipe—and dropping it—they realized it looked suspiciously like a bomb.

It was! It turned out to be a 2,200 pound bomb from World War II—one of the largest the Germans used during the blitz which killed 15,000 Londoners. The area was evacuated and a bomb disposal unit took 18 hours to disarm it.

Unresolved buried emotions such as anger, hatred, unforgiveness, resentment, shame, guilt, and grief can be like buried bombs and can be easily triggered and detonated. No wonder Paul advised us to never sleep on our anger and Peter said to get rid of such feelings. To do this we need to get them out in the open and defuse them by expressing them in a safe place … in a creative way … to a trusted friend or counselor … or write them out as David often did in the Psalms. The important thing is to get them out and off our chest and not bottle them up inside.

To heal negative emotions we need to feel them. To resolve them we need to relive them. That is, we need to bring back painful memories from past hurtful experiences to conscious memory so we can get them out in the open where they can be expressed and resolved. Bottling up feelings, like burying old bombs, is a very dangerous course to follow.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for your Word, the Bible, which gives practical instructions for creative and healthy living. Please help me to follow your instructions and face any buried negative emotional “bombs” in my life, and help me to resolve them creatively so I won’t explode onto other people. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Ephesians 4:26 (TLB), [NLT].

NOTE: See the article, “Getting in Touch With Your Feelings,” at: http://tinyurl.com/3jceny

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Mirroring

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“All of us have had that veil removed so that we can be mirrors that brightly reflect the glory of the Lord. And as the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like him and reflect his glory even more.”1

Long ago in a small village [or so the story goes] there was a place known as the House of a Thousand Mirrors. A small, happy little dog learned of this place and decided to visit. When he arrived, he bounced happily up the stairs to the doorway of the house. He looked through the door with his ears lifted high and his tail wagging as fast as he could.

To his great surprise, he found himself staring at 1,000 other happy little dogs with their tails wagging just as fast as his. He smiled a great smile, and was answered with 1,000 great smiles just as friendly. As he left the house, he thought to himself, This is a wonderful place; I will come back and visit often.

In the same village another little dog, who was not as happy as the first one, visited the house. He slowly climbed the stairs and hung his head low as he looked through the door. When he saw the 1,000 unfriendly looking dogs staring back at him, he growled at them and was horrified to see 1,000 little dogs growling back at him. As he left, he thought to himself, “This is a horrible place, I will never come back here again.”2

All the faces in the world are mirrors. What kind of reflection do we see in the faces of the people we meet? And what kind of face do they see in you and me?

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to be as Christ to every life I touch today, and help me to so live that people will see Jesus in me in all that I am, say, and do. And in so seeing, grant that they, too, will want Jesus in their life as well. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 2 Corinthians 3:18 (NLT).

2. From Tentmaker, www.tentmaker.org. Cited in Encounter magazine (Australia), March/April 2002.

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The Power of Belief

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Jesus said, “According to your faith will it be done to you.”1

In younger days I used to think I was the only one who had an inferiority complex and felt insecure. I have long since learned that feeling insecure was part of the human condition and I wasn’t alone by any means. Half the answer to overcoming this feeling is to admit it and then we are free to grow and change. Sadly, these feelings are often embedded into our mind by others who put us down or simply don’t believe in us.

For instance, I recently read how “the famous Psychiatrist Dr. Alfred Adler had an experience when a young boy, which illustrates just how powerful such a belief can be upon behavior and ability. He got off to a bad start in arithmetic and his teacher became convinced that he was ‘dumb in mathematics.’ The teacher then advised the parents of this ‘fact’ and told them not to expect too much of him. They too were convinced. Adler passively accepted the evaluation they had placed upon him. And his grades in arithmetic proved they had been correct.

“One day, however, he had a sudden flash of insight and thought he saw how to work a problem the teacher had put on the board, and which none of the other pupils could work. He announced as much to the teacher. She and the whole class laughed. Whereupon, he became indignant, strode to the blackboard, and worked the problem much to their amazement. In doing so, he realized that he could understand arithmetic. He felt a new confidence in his ability, and went on to become a good math student.”

A few years ago I shared a poem I had written with a friend and he picked it to pieces. Tragically I believed his words and never wrote another poem for years. What got me started again was when a gifted artist told me how much she loved my poems. That inspired me to write more. The fact is, we all need someone who sees the gifts we have, who believes in us, and encourages us to develop our gifts and use them.

Note: If interested, see poems: “Forever Friend” at http://tinyurl.com/3z238u and “Unsung Songs” at http://tinyurl.com/4vsnnj by yours truly.

Suggested prayer, “Dear God, thank you for the gifts and abilities you have given to me. Please help me to know what these are, be well trained and skillful in using them, believe in myself as you believe in me, and use my gifts for your glory. And please help me to be an encourager of others to help them see, develop, and use their gifts also for your glory. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Matthew 9:29 (NIV).

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Exponential Growth

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“Then He [Jesus] said to His disciples, “‘The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.’”1

Tradition says that the man who invented the game of chess was told by the Chinese emperor to name his own reward. The man simply asked that a grain of rice be placed on the first square of the chess board: two grains on the second square, four on the third, eight on the fourth, sixteen on the fifth, and so on, the grains doubling each time. The emperor quickly agreed, but was horrified when he came to the sixty-fourth square.

The only hope of mankind for peace for today and hope for eternity is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. If I tell one person about him, and we both tell another, that makes four persons sharing the Good News. By the time I’ve told twenty-one people, and if all the others do the same and so on, more than one million people will have heard the gospel in no time.2

Jesus started the entire Christian message with a motley band of twelve disciples. By Ascension Day it had grown ten times to 120. “A little over a week later, on Pentecost, it increased to over 3,000. By the time the last of the twelve died, there were an estimated half-million followers of Jesus Christ.

“That was at the end of the first century. By the end of the second century, this number had increased to almost ten million. By the close of the ninth century, there were 100 million Christians. Today, the number has grown to over one billion believers around the world. None of this growth would have been possible had Christians not been excited and supportive of missions or prayed to ‘the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’”3

Since going online in 1998 ACTS International has received over 21,000 salvation and re-commitment to Christ responses from around the world. These responses have come from Daily and Weekend Encounter and our gospel messages on the ACTS web site at www.actsweb.org. Many of the salvation responses have come from Daily and Weekend Encounter readers forwarding copies to friends, contacts and families.

Imagine if every one of our 207,000 plus subscribers to Daily, Weekend and Prayer Encounters would forward a suitable copy of Daily Encounter to one other person each month for one year, this would mean that 2,484,000 people would have an opportunity to receive the gospel in a non-offensive way. And what if each Encounter subscriber would forward a copy to one other person each week for a year? This would mean that 10,764,000 more people would have an opportunity to receive the gospel. And imagine if just one-fifth of these people would subscribe to Daily Encounter and send one copy each week to another person for a year, this would mean 111,194,000 additional people in one year could be reached for Christ. If Christians would “keep on keeping on” sharing God’s message, the spreading of the gospel would increase exponentially. With the invention of e-mail and the Internet this has never ever been easier to do.

Never have we had such an opportunity. God has given us the message and commissioned us—you and me included—to take it to all the world. He has given us the methods. All he needs is his people working together all doing their share to reach our world for Christ. Will you make a commitment to help spread the gospel and thereby be a part of what God is doing in the world today?

NOTE: To make it extremely easy for you to share Daily Encounter and ACTS Good News gospel outreach websites in a non-offensive way with family, friends and contacts, we have printed high quality, attractive business witness cards. See samples online at http://actscom.com/witness_cards.php. Try them. You’ll like them. I’ve given scores away and have never had anyone not accept it. Be sure to get a pack of 50 today.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for your great salvation which has given me the gift of eternal life and a home in heaven to be with you forever—and saved me from eternal damnation. I am available for you to use to be a part of your plans and what you are doing in the world today. Please give me a passion for lost souls and help me to be as Christ to every life I touch—and use me to help spread the gospel in whatever way I can. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Matthew 9:37-38 (NKJV).
2. Dorothy O’Neill, Encounter magazine (Australia), March/April 2002.
3. Dennis Kastens, “Echoes of Eternity,” from the sermon: “Laborers Needed for the Harvest.”

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Thinking Makes It So

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“Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”1

A Native American boy was talking with his grandfather. “What do you think about the world situation?” he asked. The grandfather replied, “I feel like two wolves are fighting in my heart. One is full of anger and hatred. The other is full of love, forgiveness and peace.”

“Which one will win?” asked the boy.

To which the grandfather replied, “The one I feed.”

Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, “Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds,” and James Allen rightly stated, “You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.”

Another has said, “What the mind dwells on the body acts on.” If you don’t believe this, think how temptation works—first a thought that seems to come from nowhere … we feed it and the thought begins to expand … then one’s feelings get involved … and the more we think about it … the more we hunger for it … then we begin to rationalize and justify what we want to do … and the battle is lost. It all starts in the mind.

As they say about computers: GIGO = garbage in garbage out. So it is with the mind. If we keep looking at and thinking about garbage, we will act out accordingly. But, if as the Bible says, we concentrate on thoughts that are noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable, we too, will act accordingly. It’s all in the mind, for what the mind dwells on the body acts on.

When tempting thoughts knock on the door of my mind, I try to remember to pray a very simple prayer, “Jesus, help. Jesus help,” until the “door knocker” goes away.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to learn how to guard my thought life, and to concentrate on noble thoughts that lead to noble living and noble deeds. Help me to appreciate the fact that your Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Thank you for your word to me today and for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Philippians 4:8 (NIV).

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Integrity

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“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he chose for his inheritance. No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine.”1

Don Johnson of Afterglow wrote, “In ancient China, the people desired security from the barbaric hordes to the north, so they built the great Chinese wall. It was so high they knew no one could climb over it and so thick that nothing could break it down. They settled back to enjoy their security. During the first hundred years of the wall’s existence China was invaded three times. Not once did the barbaric hordes break down the wall or climb over the top. Each time they bribed a gatekeeper and then marched right through the gates. The Chinese were so busy relying upon the walls of stone that they forgot to teach integrity to their children.”2

Integrity means keeping your word, being faithful to your commitments, doing an honest day’s work, not doing in the dark what you would never be caught doing in the light. It’s being loyal, trustworthy, and faithful. It means being true to yourself and honest with others, being genuine, authentic, and real, faithful, trustworthy, and loyal.

Our individual lives and our families will not be saved by personal power, wealth, education, popularity, nor beauty, but by integrity and our trust in the Lord. Neither will our nation be saved by the power and might of our military nor our brilliant technical warfare. In the long run we will only be saved by our integrity and our trust in the Lord, for “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.”

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me as an individual to always maintain integrity, and help us as a nation to realize the tremendous importance of maintaining integrity. And grant that we will be forever reminded that ‘blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.’ Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Psalm 33:12,16-19 (NIV).
2. Afterglow, www.afterglow.org.

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Character Counts

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“Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”1

Interestingly enough, where I grew up (quite a few years ago now), in our grade school English classes every story we read had a moral, and over the door of every class room was written a motto such as, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might,”2 that was quoted from the Bible. We were also taught the importance of keeping one’s word. In fact, a man’s word was his honor. It was a mark of character!

Furthermore, every week during school hours students had to attend a religious instruction class of their choice. One had to have a letter from one’s parents if he/she were to be excused from attending.

But where have those values gone today? Cheating in school is the norm for far too many students. Recently we heard on TV how one teacher failed a student whom she caught cheating on her final exam. The cheater’s parents were so outraged that this teacher was forced to resign! Teaching at Harvard Business School several years ago, Chuck Colson noted that the students didn’t have a clue about ethics. Hence we reap results such as the Enron debacle. And millions, at least in the Western world, are spending millions every year on getting rid of wrinkles and the like because they are much more concerned with their external image and appearance than inner character.

It seems for many that we have forgotten that character counts!

According to the organization, Character Counts, “The Six Pillars of Character are: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship,” to which we could add a seventh, personal honesty.

Don Johnson, author and producer of “Afterglow,” wrote, “Financier J. P. Morgan once commented that a man’s best collateral is his character. Alfred Armand Montapert said, ‘Reputation is what folks think you are. Personality is what you seem to be. Character is what you really are.’ House Speaker, Jim Wright, upon his resignation, quoted Horace Greely who stated, ‘Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wings, those who cheer today may curse tomorrow, only one thing endures—character.’ Charles Spurgeon wrote, ‘A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you, and were helped by you, will remember you when forget-me-nots are withered. Carve your name on hearts, and not on marble.’

“Someone has said ‘character is what you’d do if you knew no one would ever find out.’ I like Samuel Smiles words, ‘Sow a thought and you reap an act, sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character, sow a character and you reap a destiny.’”3

Whether we believe it or not, character does count—for time and, if you are a Christian, for eternity!

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to always remember that character counts and help me to so live that my life will always bring glory and praise to your name. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Romans 5:3-4 (NIV).
2. Ecclesiastes 9:10.
3. Afterglow, www.afterglow.org

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