The Beast
Anxiety. It is a beast. On a perfectly calm and beautiful morning, when a person is waking up to the serenity of the sunrise, it waits. Anxiety is restless from the night of rest. It is done prowling and it is hungry. It knows it’s prey.
The soul awakes, and the beast takes.
We had a blessed fall semester at Buffs for Christ, sharing in countless times of worship, fellowship and study, rediscovering the joy of service and the power of prayer, and witnessing Darci Thompson (Dexter, NM) surrender to Christ in baptism. However, like any semester, it had ups and downs. Amidst the blessing and beauty, a host of people were struggling deeply with anxiety.
What is the first Bible verse that comes to your mind when you try to cope with, or try to help someone else cope with, “distress or uneasiness of mind caused by fear of danger or misfortune” (anxiety, dictionary.com)? Perhaps you think of the scripture, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7, NIV).
Why is this so difficult to do? Based on I Peter 5:5-7, I have three suggestions.
First, we forget that he cares deeply for us. How much does God care for us? So much that He does not want us to be anxious. (I was tempted to say, “So much that He gave his son for us,” but consider the weight of a God who cares about anxiety.) We are reminded of Jesus’s words about worry: “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” (Matthew 6:26, NIV).
Second, we do not fully comprehend the connection between God’s providence and our humility. Earlier in his letter, Peter referenced Proverbs 3:34: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble” (I Peter 5:5, NIV). Because of how God responds to humility, the apostle instructs, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time” (I Peter 5:6, NIV). What does having a “modest opinion or estimate of one’s own importance…” (humility, dictionary.com) have to do with anxiety? If we see ourselves for who we really are, and God for who He really is, the logical response is to depend on him. When we realize that we are weak and He is strong, we more readily cast our cares on Him.
Third, we lose the reality of eternity. I don’t know about you, but when Peter states that God will lift up the humble “in due time” (I Peter 5:6, NIV), I tend to think that God is going to lift me up in my lifetime. Not only do I expect him to lift me up in my lifetime, but I expect him to lift me up…pretty soon. Peter has already been speaking of eternal things (see I Peter 1:3-12); the context of I Peter suggests that the apostle expects God to redeem the humble when “…Jesus Christ is revealed” (I Peter 1:7, NIV). In all honesty, I don’t always like the idea of receiving a reward posthumously. But, consider the example of God’s timetable that we have in our Lord and Savior: “…he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death…therefore God exalted him…” (Philippians 2:7,9, NIV). I have come to believe that Peter is thinking eternally when he says, “in due time.”
The soul awakes, and the beast takes. It is interesting to me that immediately after his instructions about removing anxiety, Peter warns his readers about Satan: “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion..” (I Peter 5:8, NIV). Anxiety seems to be an effective tool for The Accuser. Another thing about Satan—he does not play fair; he waits “…until an opportune time” (Luke 4:16, NIV). As stated earlier, that time may be early in the morning when our defenses are down.
C. S. Lewis emphasizes the importance of beginning the day with the right mindset: “…the first job each morning consists simply…in letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in” (*Mere Christianity, p. 198). What if each morning we realized (and maybe even rehearsed) that God cares for us so much that he does not want us to be anxious, that only he is able to handle our cares, and that he will lift us up at the last day.
Cast it. Throw it. On God. Take it off of your shoulders and throw it on to His shoulders. You may do this because He cares for you. He loves you. He does not want you to have it on your shoulders anymore.
These are comforting truths, and they are truths, for every Christian.
Come Lord Jesus.
Kent Mereness
*Lewis, C. S. (2001). Mere Christianity: A revised and amplified edition, with a new introduction, of the three books, Broadcast talks, Christian behaviour, and Beyond personality. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.