[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”3.0.47″][et_pb_fullwidth_header title=”Anxiety: Throwback” subhead=”May 25, 2018 | Anxiety” background_layout=”dark” background_overlay_color=”rgba(38,38,38,0.32)” _builder_version=”3.0.92″ background_image=”https://truestoryproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Anxiety-Throwback.jpg” custom_padding=”200px||200px|” text_orientation=”left” header_fullscreen=”off” header_scroll_down=”off” image_orientation=”center” content_orientation=”center” custom_button_two=”off” button_two_icon_placement=”right” custom_button_one=”off” button_one_icon_placement=”right” /][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.0.47″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.92″ background_layout=”light”]
[dropcap]I[/dropcap] have been following Christ since I was 16, and I’m now 48. I have suffered much for my commitment, in most of the ways available in the UK – so I haven’t yet been imprisoned or received physical violence, as Christians do throughout the world today and have throughout our history; but I have had my work, career, finances, family, personal life and long-term health severely damaged simply for following Christ. I have had multiple reasons to be very anxious as a Christian, and many of my continuing health problems are recovery from past anxieties.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.92″ background_layout=”light”]
I have found enormous encouragement from the Beatitudes, in all these situations. Before he faced his ultimate test, our Lord made these extraordinary promises to his followers: eight (debatably nine) times he places before us the life that he and his followers would lead, with all its discomforts, longings and sacrifices, and every time he places a sunny promise: that the faithful Father will come through for us, with the opposite of the world’s expectations. The humble, the mournful, the gentle, the serious, the merciful, the innocent, the risk-takers, the persecuted, the insulted and excluded – those, in other words, like him – will experience possession, comfort, inheritance, fulfilment, mercy, intimacy, vindication and reward. But not now. As he modelled this painful journey, all the way to the cross and then beyond it, he calls us to follow him along the same path, experiencing death and resurrection repeatedly, and usually with an increasing intensity as we mature.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.0.92″ src=”https://truestoryproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Anxiety-Throwback2.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”off” url_new_window=”off” use_overlay=”off” always_center_on_mobile=”on” force_fullwidth=”off” show_bottom_space=”on” animation_style=”flip” animation_direction=”right” animation_duration=”1900ms” disabled=”off” disabled_on=”on|on|” /][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.0.47″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.92″ background_layout=”light”]
The Psalms were his prayer book on this journey, giving him the words to speak to his Father, even when he was at the extreme limit of his personal suffering. I have found the Psalms a huge comfort: they give us permission to complain, to cry, to feel depressed or discouraged, as well as reminding us to praise. Their constant rhythm, like Christ’s own life and ours with him, is of intimidation and threats; high levels of anxiety; then God’s deliverance and new resurrections. There are good times when no threat is in view, and past troubles are forgotten; bad times when the Psalmist feels overwhelmed; times of remembering past deliverance; and times of living by faith in future deliverance.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.0.92″ src=”https://truestoryproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Anxiety-Throwback3.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”off” url_new_window=”off” use_overlay=”off” always_center_on_mobile=”on” force_fullwidth=”off” show_bottom_space=”on” animation_style=”flip” animation_direction=”bottom” animation_duration=”1900ms” disabled=”off” disabled_on=”on|on|” /][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.92″ background_layout=”light”]
Kierkegaard called anxiety ‘the giddiness of hope’. Sometimes people experience intense anxiety not because their dreams are denied, but because they are in sight of being fulfilled. When the depths of our desires are touched upon, we are often more vulnerable than when they are completely out of sight. We feel stable at the top of the cycle, and at the bottom; but we are most anxious going up and coming down!
What is able to steady us is the permanency of God’s character, and the reliability of everything he says and does. As we mature in faith, instead of living 90% in the present and 10% in the eternal certainties, we slowly shift that percentage. Mature Christians have a palpable, permanent, unassailable joy because they live above 50% eternal. My aim in life is to live before God’s permanence, and beyond anxiety.
Christ experienced tremendous joy, despite the immense pressures and tensions of his recorded ministry, because he was already mature in knowing his Father. Like the Psalmist in 22, for example, he could experience powerful suffering and yet still rise up to praise his Father. The standing injustices of the Roman occupation; growing opposition of the Jewish authorities; the persistent childishness of the Twelve; the sense of a limited time window to complete everything; the limits of his ministry to Israel coupled with Israel’s self-destructiveness; all would have driven a lesser man mad. He needed thirty years with his Father just to be ready for this! He learnt to cast his cares on ‘Abba’.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.0.47″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.92″ background_layout=”light”]
I know Christian leaders who could hear the most terrible and disturbing news, yet shrug it off and laugh, because they know their Father. We fret over the most trivial things, when there is a whole ocean of significance we have yet to glimpse. We were made for significance, for sacrifice, for heroism; and our fiction constantly reminds us of this heroic imprint on our spirits. Read about Jonah, his bush and his city!
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.92″ background_layout=”light”]
We have a kind Father who is prepared to let us suffer and struggle, within limits, to discover that deeper vein of heroism within ourselves. This is the image of God, in which we were made. He is kind enough to educate us, to draw out this resemblance, this greatness from us. He has presented us with his Son, who is our central, relatable model of how he is, and what he intended when he created our humanity.
I love the quote by Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor under James I, a great English prose writer and a Christian prophet: in his Essays, he writes: ‘Surely it is heaven upon earth to have a mind move in charity, rest in quietness, and turn upon the poles of truth.’ Make it an aim!
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.0.92″ src=”https://truestoryproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Anxiety-Throwback4.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”off” url_new_window=”off” use_overlay=”off” always_center_on_mobile=”on” force_fullwidth=”off” show_bottom_space=”on” animation_style=”flip” animation_direction=”right” animation_duration=”1900ms” disabled=”off” disabled_on=”on|on|” /][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.0.47″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_blog fullwidth=”off” posts_number=”3″ include_categories=”35902″ show_more=”on” show_author=”off” show_comments=”on” show_pagination=”off” _builder_version=”3.0.92″ header_font=”|300|||||||” header_font_size=”22px” header_line_height=”1.3em” pagination_font_size_tablet=”51″ pagination_line_height_tablet=”2″ custom_padding=”|||” saved_tabs=”all” show_content=”off” show_thumbnail=”on” show_date=”on” show_categories=”on” use_dropshadow=”off” use_overlay=”off” background_layout=”light”]
[/et_pb_blog][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]