In the face of visible danger, fear can prompt us to take defensive or evasive action – the well-known “fight or flight” reaction. But anxiety often comes through the perception of a threat that doesn’t exist.
A “What if?” is a hypothetical question that arises from an anticipated problem, often one that is imaginary. A “What If?” is rarely positive. Have you ever said to yourself, “What if I were to succeed in life?” or “What if my income level were to rise exponentially?” Most likely not. We tend to hypothesize negatively rather than positively.
Some Christians are superstitious and worry that if they tell someone, “I haven’t been ill for a long time” they might be smitten with sickness. They think happy thoughts about their good health, but are careful not to put their thoughts into words.
Yet they think nothing of asking, “What if the economy were to get out of control?” “What if the price of petrol were to double?” “What if I were unable to provide for my family?” “What if my health were to fail?” “What if the pathology report were to reveal breast cancer?” Not many ask themselves: “What if God were to suddenly and unexpectedly bless me beyond anything I could imagine?”
Job had a hidden fear. His first recorded words reveal a secret anxiety. Were his many blessings too good to last? (Job 1:5) After Satan destroyed his children, his livestock, and his property – and then afflicted him with boils, Job confessed, “I feared a fear and it came upon me!” (Job 3:25) Or, “I thought this could happen!”
Job saw God’s blessings on his family as a potential problem to his children. They might take them for granted and curse God in their hearts. His answer to this secret fear was a continuous cycle of anxious, protective prayer (Job 3:26). Is your prayer life based on your thankfulness for God’s care, or instead on your fear that things are too good to last?
Anxiety and faith don’t belong together in the same brain! “What ifs?” are worst case scenarios that turn dreams into nightmares by suggesting that things are simply too good to be true. Job never said a wrong word — unlike his three critical friends, whom Job called “miserable comforters”! Not that their words were untrue – just that they were inapplicable to him — not relevant.
Job needed comfort, not criticisms that apportioned blame and added more misery to his already pitiful condition. He refused to accept his friends’ insistence that he must have sinned to be where he was – down in the dumps, literally, scraping his weeping boils with pieces of broken pottery.
The New Testament prescription for anxiety is Philippians 4:6. “Be anxious for nothing…” But we should not stop with these four cautionary words, for if the first part of the verse points to the problem; the second part prescribes the cure: “…in everything [that is, every situation, condition and circumstance] by prayer and petitions [both general and specific prayers] with thanksgiving [often a missing ingredient] let your requests be made known to God…” [Express them in words.]
“And [the result will be] the peace of God, which passes all understanding shall guard your hearts and minds [stand sentry over your emotions and thoughts] through Christ Jesus” [the Guarantor of the peace promise]. The words, “that passes all understanding” make up a highway sign reading: TAKE PEACE IN HEART BYPASS TO AVOID SPAGHETTI-BRAIN JUNCTION.
The answer to a problem is usually its exact opposite, which, in the case of anxious is “relieved”. Others are “assured, calm, confident, composed, cool, serene, unperturbed, unruffled.” So, why not pray Philippians 4:6-7 when next you begin to feel anxiety coming on; and then choose which word best describes you. “Unruffled” would be my choice.
You can enjoy inexplicable peace in worrying situations, while praying your way through and out of them. After all, even Job, the very epitome of suffering, didn’t stay down in the dumps forever.