anxiously studying ...

I've been doing a little thinking about anxiety lately.

I've had some health issues for the last couple years, and after ruling out a lot of fairly scary stuff, the docs have settled on some kind of anxiety disorder. Basically my body is producing the "fight or flight" chemicals without any real reason to do so.

So ... if a wolf pack slinks up behind my on my way to my car some evening ... I'm ready!

I've started on some meds that are helping, and for which I'm very thankful. Right now, a side effect is that I could easily sleep 23 hours/day, but that will pass, and I'll be myself again, only ... hopefully ... feeling a LOT better.

That has led me to do some studying on anxiety in the Scriptures.

While I know that what's going on with my health is physically-caused, it's made me think about the sin of worry, and what it does to a person's life and relationship with God.

The first passage I looked at was in Psalm 127, and it stood out to me that God "gives to His beloved, even in their sleep." When I'm worried, and stressed, I spend the midnight hours trying to work through the issues, and figure out solutions. There is so little profit in this, and God is at work, whether I stay up or not!

I was looking, too, at Matthew 6 and Luke 12, where it talks about the Lord caring for lilies and sparrows. I happened to notice a phrase in "The Message" translation that I liked. It described the sparrows as "careless in the care of God." I loved that wording!

It was interesting to me how often worry/care/anxiousness is shown to distract a person from the Scriptures, and deaden to what God is doing. In Matthew 13:22, the parable of the four soils says that the weeds that choked out the influence of the Scriptures were the "cares of this life." And the reason why the banquet guests didn't come to the banquet in the Luke 14 parable, and why they weren't ready for the Lord's coming in the Luke 21 parable ... all the "cares of life."

And the special charge given to the single person in 1 Cor. 7 is directly related to being worry-free! vs. 32-35 say the single person is "free from concern" so they can serve God whole-heartedly. In fact, we're "free from concern" so we can be 'concerned about the things of God." "Careless in the care of God" just like the sparrows. :) Freedom from concern is the special blessing of singleness ... if we choose to reach out and grab it.