When Anxiety Was Great Within Me!
It’s terrifying to feel your foot slip when your 25 feet off the ground hanging Christmas lights. It’s frightening when you realize you placed your foot on an unstable rock when your trying to cross the river. Both of those situations have happened to me. My anxiety level increases just thinking about them.
How’s your anxiety level these days? There’s plenty in the world to make a person panic. Threats to our physical safety can fill us with alarm. Assaults to our financial security leave us frightened for the future. Riots and protests make us wonder about the stability of our nation. Anxiety levels rise as we wonder where its all headed.
Nothing raises anxiety levels higher and faster than a conscience plagued with guilt. The devil and our minds deliver and onslaught of past sins and bad decisions so that guilt and anxiety rise to record levels. Sensing your hope and peace slipping away can leave you feeling like your whole life is resting on shaky ground.
Today, Jesus reaches out his nail-scarred hand to take hold of your delicate heart and plant it firmly on the rock of his unfailing love. That unfailing love is just that…unfailing. It’s far more powerful than a virus, far more trustworthy than a bank account and far more stable than any nation. More than that, his unfailing love forever silenced the devil and quieted your conscience by his death on the cross. In Jesus, God has declared you not guilty. You are loved. You are forgiven. You are safe.
It turns out, letting anxiety go has nothing to do with masks, money, or the military. It has everything to do with Jesus.
When I said, “My foot is slipping,” your unfailing love, LORD, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy. – Psalm 94:18-19
