How to Stop Anxiety from Ruining Your Relationship with God
Joshua 22:17-25
Synopsis Joshua 22:17-25 5/24/2018
As the warriors from the tribes of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh returned from the conquest of the Promised Land, they built a memorial in the form of the altar of God. The other tribes of Israel viewed this with hostility and massed the military.
They sent the priest Phinehas as an envoy to speak with the Reubenites and Gadites and to warn them from creating an alternative system of worship to the one that God had instituted.
The Reubenites and Gadites answered that the memorial was not intended to be used as a place of worship. Its purpose was to memorialize for future generations the fact that the eastern tribes were, indeed, part of Israel.
Worry Leads to Isolation and Misunderstanding
The sudden realization that their choice to take the territory outside the Promised Land caused the Reubenites and Gadites to worry about their place in Israel. Joshua had referred to them as “allies” – a subtle distinction reinforcing the fact that their place in the nation was different because they lived east of the Jordan.
The Reubenites and Gadites were filled with anxiety. They imagined that they might somehow lose their place amongst God’s chosen people. They didn’t want this. So they built a memorial replica in the form of the altar of God. With this, they intended to eternally establish and commemorate their position within the tribes.
But their act resulted in reduced security. The other tribes didn’t understand the purpose of the altar memorial. They assumed the Reubenties and Gadites had conspired to begin their own sacrificial practice so that they were not dependent on the other tribes.
How to Stop Anxiety From Destroying Your Relationship with God
Anxiety is the experience of fear reactions in my body when nothing is actually threatening me. My sympathetic nervous system is activated. “Fight or flight” – but there’s nothing really to fight. And there’s nothing to run from. I’m filled with nervous energy and no clear sense of what I should be doing.
My mind and body have conspired to force me to think about failure even though there is nothing threatening my success. The whole experience is nothing other than some ideas swirling in my mind.
But for this condition, God has prescribed a way out. I call it “visit the worst case”. It works like this:
- Identify what is the object of the anxious thoughts.
- Imagine if the strangely improbable “worst case” actually came to pass.
- Ask yourself: Would you survive? Could you survive?
If they answer is yes, then there’s nothing to worry about – let it go.
If the answer is no, then recognize that your only hope is in God’s salvation.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” Matt 6:25
