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Anxiety and Your Mind

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Your mind has incredible potential. It can protect you or assault you; free you to engage the world or imprison you behind bars of worry and concern. It’s a weapon, really. And like any weapon, how you use it matters—a lot.  

For those reasons—and many others—when God offers us help in our fight for peace, he addresses the mind. Consider these battle-ground commands: “Take every thought captive” (2 Corinthians)  

“Set your mind on things above” (Colossians) 

“Prepare your mind for action” (1 Peter) 

You can feel the urgency in those instructions. Life is war. We’re under assault. Identity the threat. Make ready your most powerful weapon.  

Anxiety is a tricky foe. Someone called it “the nameless fear…an enemy without a face.” Fighting it can feel like shooting in the dark and you may grow frustrated and hopeless. 

That’s why Paul’s final instructions to anxious Christians in Philippians 4 are so helpful. He shines a spotlight on the enemy and instructs us how to fight better:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 

Only one command appears in that list: THINK. Paul starts with the mind, not emotions, not actions. He begins with the mind. Think about these things. (If you’ll permit me to geek out a second, the verb for “think” is pretty cool.) 

It’s logizomai. Of course you’ll spot the root word, logic in there. So reason is involved. But it goes deeper than reason—literally. It means to drill down, to ponder, to dwell on and evaluate. It was used by ancient Greeks in mathematics. Calculate. A passing thought won’t do. This means to reflect deeply and seriously. Fight anxiety like this.  

Paul is giving us access to the best ammunition. Eight virtues appear in his list. Before you groan and click elsewhere, let me confess something. Over the years, I’ve grown to dislike lists like this. To be clear, it’s not God’s fault—or Paul’s. My dread of lists arose from being on the receiving end of teachers who misapplied them, turning them into another “prohibition checklist.” A fresh, updated catalog of “Thou shall nots.”

But look carefully and you won’t find any negatives here. This is a list of positive virtues for us to pursue and explore. This is not a STOP sign. It’s a GO sign. God is inviting us to explore His world of goodies and fill our minds with the most lofty, truthful, beautiful content we can find. That’s His gift to us. The sky is the limit. Treasure awaits!  

Listen, child of God. We are image-bearing creatures. Lords of creation. Masters of the universe. Our orders? Exercise dominion. Fill and subdue the earth. Rule on behalf of God. We are to consume the best resources, and then produce our own. We’re to bless and enrich the world. This list isn’t meant to drive us into hiding, or to make us paranoid. It’s packed with potential. Sadly, for many, that potential will remain untapped because they view this list only as a ban on lowbrow, cultural trash.  

But Paul has more in mind here than helping you avoid Fifty Shades of Grey and Slipknot. He uses the word “Whatever” six times. Then closes with “If any.” He’s nudging, challenging, inviting us to explore the best, find the most lofty, consume the highest-quality, premium, top-shelf stuff. Dwell on it. Ponder it. Drill down deep.  

Pardon the food example, but if you eat Happy Meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, do you really need someone to draw a chart predicting the grim future of your health and immune system? Do that for a week and you’ll feel the decline. Do it for years…you get the idea. What you consume matters. What goes in will eventually show up elsewhere. That’s true of bodies. It’s true of engines. It’s true of our minds.      

New research shows the average American consumes over ten hours of media every day. Media is a catch-all term that includes music, TV, Internet, news, Social Media, books, smartphones, newspapers, magazines. Ten hours a day. 

If you suffer from anxiety and it’s shrinking your world and reducing your life to one of the two primary coping mechanisms (control and avoidance), I cannot urge you strongly enough to consider what role your media choices are playing. Consumption matters.   

For example, let’s hypothesize that the pandemic has introduced fear, distrust, and worry into your life. You spend your days of lock-down clicking headlines, checking websites, scrolling articles, and surfing channels for the latest, eye-popping updates. And by the end of the night, your head is spinning, your stomach is churning, and your worry meter is peaked out. But like our happily addicted McDonalds consumer, by morning, you’ll be craving more. This list is a call to aim higher.   

So anxious Christian, use your mind well. Feed it the best stuff out there. Organic, grain-fed, free-graze, healthy thoughts. Put in the high-octane fuel. And watch how your engine responds. Don’t settle for merely avoiding the worst. Pursue the best. Whatever is true. Start there. Most of what you see, hear, and read out there is bunk. I’m not just talking about how bad the pandemic may get. I’m talking about how good those instagram posts may look. Rise up. Go high. Something more true is up there. 

Combat the “what ifs” with “even ifs.” You’re in Christ. You are more than a conqueror through Him. You’re rich beyond your dreams. You have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. So those social media posts? Meh. You have beauty age can’t touch, a meaning suffering can’t rob, an identity that death can’t budge. You have the only thing that matters—the best thing. You have Christ, and with Him, security. Whatever is true. See how it works? This goes much deeper and further than “Look on the bright side” or “Just think happy thoughts.” Do those really help you overcome anxiety? No. Bringing God back into your story where He belongs does.   

And don’t forget the highest expression of those virtues: Jesus, the highest who condescends to the lowest. The spotless lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus, who died to help anxious people like us. Think on these things.