Chaplain's Corner

Anxiety – it’s a funny thing anxiety.  For myself, up until a few years ago, I would have never thought of myself as an anxious person.  But the fact is I can be, the fact is, every one of us can experience anxiety.  To be human is to be touched with anxiety (among many other conditions).  Now, there are many degrees of anxiety.  There is the garden variety anxiety that almost everyone experiences from time to time when we realize that life is full of uncertainty which we have little or no control over.  Then there are many diagnosable anxiety disorders that can literally cripple one’s life.

Some anxiety is episodic and arises in somewhat predictable patterns when we find ourselves dealing with life’s uncertainties. The there are other anxieties that seems to come out of nowhere and cannot be easily traced to a particular event.  Now, I am no counselor and certainly not a psychologist or psychiatrist.  I’m just a simple chaplain, but in reality, the vast amount of people that feel anxious from time to time don’t have a psychiatric disorder, but they still struggle with difficult anxious feelings.

Now those of you who have had experience in Christian churches may have had your anxious feelings compounded with feelings of guilt surrounding those anxious feelings.  We have all had the verse from Philippians 4:6 quoted to us: “Do not be anxious about anything…”  Ouch!  So I feel anxious and now I feel guilty about feeling anxious – where will it all end?   For some dear souls it doesn’t, they live in the constant vortex of anxiety and guilt.  Some of you who are caught in this cycle would more than likely benefit from exploring those feelings with a good counselor or may even benefit from medication, but here again we find many churches, many Christians who discourage people living with anxiety from seeking this kind of help.  Instead we are told to pray more, trust in God more, as if this were the antidote for all our problems.

And here is the bind for Christians like myself:  the bind between trusting God and using the help that He has provided.  You’ve all heard the story about the man and the flood haven’t you?  A Christian man had a home on the flood plain of the Mississippi River and as the waters rose he began to pray, “Lord save me.”  A Neighbor had a boat and he pulled up to the man’s porch and said, “Get in and we’ll get to high ground.” But the fellow said, “No thanks, I’m trusting God to save me.”  The water was rising fast and the man was now up on his roof when a helicopter came, it lowered a fellow down to the roof and the rescuer said, “Come on, grab hold of this halter and put it around your body and we will hoist you up out of these flood waters.”  The man replied, “No thanks, I’m waiting for God to save me.”  It wasn’t long before the waters overcame the house and the man drowned.  When his spirit was lifted into God’s presence he said to the Lord, “Lord, I had faith, I prayed and prayed, why didn’t you save me?”  The Lord replied, “My son, I tried, I sent the neighbor with the boat, but you refused my rescue and I sent the helicopter, but again you refused my rescue.  I wanted to save you, but you wouldn’t accept my help!”

To trust God doesn’t mean that we refuse the help available to us, for God’s primary means of meeting our needs is through others.  Miracles are rare in the big picture of things.  That isn’t a statement of disbelief in God’s ability to act supernaturally; but a recognition that God’s normal manner of touching us with his grace is through others.

So back to our anxiety.  If you find that your feelings of anxiety are hindering your life, making it difficult to do the things you need and want to do, you should reach out for the help that God is already providing.  Or, if you are finding that your feelings of anxiety are overwhelming you, rising like a flood and taking over your life and threatening to drown you, reach out to the help that is available, God will meet you in your need through others.

I therapist I know well has been involved with a Jewish Psychiatrist as a mentor.  They have worked together for many years on a weekly basis and this nonobservant Jewish psychiatrist has been such a wonderful gift from God to this friend of mine.  No, he doesn’t share my friend’s faith, he doesn’t even understand it and many of the discussions revolve around how my friend’s faith informs the work she does with her clients and impacts her own development as a self.

Now many Christians wouldn’t be open to a person like this, a nonobservant Jewish psychiatrist.  They wouldn’t be open for many reasons, and by failing to be open they would miss the “boat” or the “helicopter” that God sends their way to save them from the struggles they are facing.  The point is that it is not an either or, but a both and situation.

In your life, you may be struggling with anxiety.  You may be afraid even to admit it, for many in your circle would judge you for having such feelings.  They would exhort you to believe more, read the Bible more, pray more, attend more services at the church, and get involved more.  And it is not that in themselves any of these things are wrong, it is just that this is such a small “tool chest” to address life’s realities and God has given us so much more.  God has given us psychology and psychiatry, medical doctors and medicines; many are effective in assisting us in dealing with our anxieties.

Yes, the garden variety anxiety that we occasionally experience when our lives get a little too much out of control might best be address with trusting prayer, but the crippling forms of anxiety that prevent us from living need more than prayer, and God has given us more.

All truth is God’s truth.  God has not just given his gifts to believers; many unbelievers have been used powerfully by God to develop ways of dealing with human weakness and disease.  Wouldn’t it be a terrible share is we suffered with some of the more severe forms of anxiety needlessly because like the man in the flood, we refused the help God sends us?