The following is an excerpt from a chapter about anxiety, worry, fear, and stress. For more information about this excerpt from my Mentor Training Course, Level One, please click here.
Anxiety takes on various forms, and people’s responses to it take on various forms. Anxiety is the prolonged sensation of fear in response to a perceived threat against oneself. Fear, by definition, is a self-protective tool to help a person sense and respond to a perceived danger. We see this in Psalm 55:3-6.
3 My enemies shout at me,
making loud and wicked threats.
They bring trouble on me and angrily hunt me down.
4 My heart pounds in my chest. The terror of death assaults me.
5 Fear and trembling overwhelm me, and I can’t stop shaking.
6 Oh, that I had wings like a dove;
then I would fly away and rest! Psalm 55:3-6 NLT
From the Psalmist’s viewpoint, he is anxious due to threats from the enemy. He is terrified of death and danger, and he perceives escape to be the best solution. This passage is a vivid example of what some might call an “anxiety attack” or “panic attack.”
While it is a common human experience to be anxious, it can be debilitating. We must think Biblically about anxiety so that it will not interfere in our relationships, damage our ability to engage in daily activities, or consume our thought life. It is natural to feel worried or troubled about things in life that are indeed worrisome or troubling! It is not God’s will or plan for you, however, to be so consumed with it that it overtakes your trust in the Lord.
Romans 15:4 (New International Version, ©2011) "For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope".
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