Breaking Free From AnxietySample

Celebrate the Person of the Lord

What Paul first says about anxiety is so simple that it may sound simplistic at first. But let it sink in: “Do not be anxious about anything” (Philippians 4:6).

Yes, I know that’s easy to say and hard to do. Everyone dealing with anxiety knows that in one sense you just can’t turn anxiety on and off like water coming out of a spigot. On the other hand, two verses earlier, Paul confidently asserts that when anxiety attacks you, you attack anxiety. How? “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4).

Focus on his word again. Paul repeats himself to emphasize his point, so rejoicing in the Lord is not something you do only when you feel like it. You need to make rejoicing in the Lord—celebrating him—a habit. You need to build joy into the muscle memory of your heart, mind, and soul. Too many people wait until the anxiety alarm bells go off to focus on the Lord—on his goodness, on his grace, and on his greatness. By then, the wind of anxiety is so great that they snuff out that little matchstick of joy you tried to light.

You see, if you consistently rejoice in the Lord when things are good, when you’re happy, then you’ll be ready to rejoice in him when the clouds are thundering, the lightning is flashing, the wind is blowing, and the rain is pouring.

Paul also understood that it’s hard to rejoice when pressures are great, problems are big, and people are mean. It’s hard to rejoice when the walls are closing in and the roof is falling down and the foundation is coming apart. But he didn’t say “rejoice in your circumstances.” If you derive your joy from the stock market, your joy may crash. If you derive your joy from your marriage, your joy may die or divorce you. If you derive your joy from your business, your joy may declare bankruptcy. But when you derive your joy from the Lord, your joy will never forsake you or fail you.

Are you under great pressure? The Lord is greater than that pressure. Do you have big problems? The Lord is bigger than your problems. Are you dealing with mean people? The Lord is stronger than those people. You won’t find a lot of joy in possessions, popularity, or prosperity, but you can always rejoice in the greatness, the grace, and the goodness of the Lord.

In Dr. Earl Henslin’s book titled This Is Your Brain on Joy, he wrote that joy and anxiety travel the same pathway in our brains, and it’s normal for them to try to occupy the same path at the same time. That means we must choose which one gets the right‑of‑way. He said if we open the gate for joy, anxiety must get off the road; there’s no room for both of them to come along.

To deal with our anxiety, then, we should celebrate the person of the Lord.