We Are Going Through a Time of Anxiety and Tension. the News That We Hear and Read Really

Anxiety

We are going through a time of anxiety and tension. The news that we hear and read really escalates tension. What remedy does the Bible bring before us? We read in St. Peter's first letter chapter five, verse seven: "cast your anxiety on him, because he cares for you". He says that anxiety is something like a heavy burden that is to be unloaded upon Jesus, who is ready to accept it because he cares for us.

We read John 14, 1 where Jesus says: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. believe in God, believe also in me". There is an indication that we permit our hearts to be troubled; that is, we are open to anxiety and the reason for this is our lack of trust in the Lord. Hence it is evident that lack of trust in the Lord leads to anxiety.

It begins with our basic necessities of life. Jesus knows it; that is why he said: "I tell you do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear" (Mt. 6:25). These are primary concerns of our life, still he says we need not worry. Jesus goes on to say: "do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things..." (Mt. 6:31-32). Jesus here implicates that those who worry are those who do not know God; on the other hand, those know God will not be worried.

We have two instances in the Acts of Apostles where we realize that those who have experienced God will not be worried. The first one is about St. Peter. In the twelfth chapter we read: "The very night before Herod was going to bring him out, Peter, bound with two chains, was sleeping between two soldiers..."(Acts 12:6). What on earth can one imagine that a person chained and thrown into prison can sleep between two soldiers before the night of his trial!!!? But St. Peter could. He had no worry because he had an experience of the Risen Lord.

The second one is St. Paul and his disciple Silas. In the 16th chapter we read: "... he (the jailor) put them in the inner most cell and fastened their feet in the stocks"(Acts 16:24). They were flogged and their legs fastened in the stocks. They had all the reasons to be worried and tensed, but what did they do? The next verse says: "About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them." Who could do that in such a tensed situation? They could, because they too have experienced Jesus.

It is interesting to note that (I have seen) when we are overcome with anxiety our body becomes weak, affects memory and can not concentrate and pray. If it grows in a higher degree we will not able to recognize others, as in the case of Mary Magdalene who misunderstood Risen Jesus to gardener or the two disciples who were going to Emmaus could not recognize the Risen Lord who was walking with them.

That is why the Word of God instructs us: "Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you" (Ps. 55:22).

So what shall we do? Let us earnestly desire for a Jesus-experience, with full confidence hand over to Him all the burdens (which means anxiety, tension etc). Keep in mind that a worldly man will be worried about tomorrow, whereas a godly man will not be worried at any cost because he knows that the Lord will sustain him.