Breaking Free From AnxietySample

Appreciate the Presence of the Lord

Let’s back up a step to verse 5, when Paul says, “Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.”

Gentleness is an attitude that’s calm under fire and levelheaded. It doesn’t overreact. It chooses faith over fear, trust over trembling, and worship over worry. It’s the ability to keep your head when everybody else is losing theirs. Paul says it should be evident to everyone. But why?

When things that make you anxious come into your life, God is giving you an opportunity to show other people how a believer in God and a follower of Jesus responds. It’s the chance for your family members, friends, coworkers, and neighbors to see how someone who truly believes that “God is with me and in control” reacts to the most difficult of situations. So when everyone else runs out, remain calm because God is right there with you. That calm is also contagious.

Those last four words Paul wrote are so huge because they tell us how we can maintain that gentleness—because “the Lord is near.” Some scholars believe he was referring to the nearness of the second coming of the Lord, and that may be true. But I believe it also refers to the nearness of God in our lives and especially in our troubles. There is no need to fear when the Lord is near.

Too often we focus on the problems, the pressures, and the people causing our anxiety and forget about God. Instead, we should focus on God and let him handle the problems, the pressure, and the people causing our anxiety. Whatever is causing your anxiety, it’s not meant to drive you into emotional despair and despondency; it’s meant to drive you into the hands of an all‑powerful God who already knows the answer to your question and the solution to your problem and can handle whatever you’re facing.

Every time you pace the floor with your stomach in a knot and the ghost of anxiety is haunting every part of your home, you ought to say to yourself, The Lord is near. Knowing you can never get away from God and that God will never go away from you should bring tremendous comfort to you. No matter what foe you face, you’re not fighting alone. No matter how hot the fire you’re in, no matter how deep the pit you’re in, the Lord is with you. You can’t escape his presence.