Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 05:4 (Fall 1991)
Article: “Let Not Your Hearts Be Anxious ...”
Author: Susan T. McCoubrie

“Let Not Your Hearts Be Anxious ...”

Susan T. McCoubrie

Meditation for the Twin Cities Chapter Meeting, February 3,1990

Editor’s Note: Occasionally we have featured articles dealing with problems we share as part of our common human experience. Here our CBE Secretary shares her struggles against worry and fear.

Have you ever had the experience of knowing something mentally but having an entirely different response emotionally? I have been grappling with this for the past few years.

Yes, intellectually I know God’s promises of inner peace, and yet I experience anxiety. I have seen God work for good in my life and in the lives of others, but on the other hand, emotionally, I fear. From early childhood, I have been described as a “card carrying worry-wart.” I have huge anxiety attacks in the middle of the night! What if my husband and I get sick? What if we are not able to find work? How will we be able to maintain ourselves? Stuff like that.

My study of the Bible has made it very clear that behind the excessive worry, anxiety, and tension with which I struggle is the problem of unbelief. I don’t like to name it that, but it is true. Unbelief.

Hebrews 3:12 says that unbelief leads us away from God. I can attest to that. God remains true and central, but it is I who move, in my unbelief, away from that centrality. God’s love and desire for us is amply expressed throughout Scripture and touchingly displayed in verses such as Ezekiel 36:9, “Behold, I am for you,” and Rev. 2:13, “I know where you live.”

So, what can I do when I fall into a state of crippling anxiety? One of the most helpful passages for me is Phil. 4:6-8 (Amplified), “Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything but in EVERY circumstance and IN EVERYTHING by prayer and definite requests WITH THANKSGIVING continue to make your wants known to God.” The passage continues by speaking of God’s peace garrisoning and mounting guard over our hearts and minds. The concluding verse speaks of whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, gracious, “if there is any excellence, anything worthy of praise, think on these things... fix your mind on them.” It takes a deliberate mental decision to stem the tide of anxiety, to “cut ’em off at the pass,” so to speak, to say “whoa” to the flood of worry that roars in.

I try to review the promises that God has made and claim them:

Isaiah 41:10. “Fear not, I am with you, be not dismayed, for I am you God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my...