The Cure for Anxiety

One Sunday, I was watching an author being interviewed on TV about his latest book. He explained that he had written his book while he was recovering from COVID-19 and he said, “If I get COVID again, I am going to write another book.” Then he added, kind of off the cuff, “You know,  you can train the devil to leave you alone.”

That was an interesting thought. We do have spiritual enemies. In fact, Ephesians 6:12 NLT says, We are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.

On the day I was listening to this author, I was battling some anxiety while waiting on the results of some medical tests. I decided to give the author’s idea a try. “Okay,” I said out loud. “Satan, any time you try and attack me with anxiety I am going to start praying for others.”

I started praying for others who I knew were having physical problems and immediately the anxiety left. The next morning, I started feeling anxious again. I started praying for others and the feeling left again and never returned. The tests soon came back perfectly normal.

That was months ago. Afterwards a friend at church shared an identical story with the congregation. My associate pastor also said this had happened to him.

A few days ago, I once again experienced some anxiety about my health. (Sometimes I battle feelings like this just because of my advancing age.) I tried praying for others but this time the anxiety remained. I kept praying, but my anxious thoughts continued. 

I decided to put on some worship music and as I listened to the music, the anxious thoughts began to subside.

We live in a fallen world and we are bombarded by many messages that can cause anxiety. Sometimes that anxiety is from the enemy and other times it is just a normal human response. Our flesh can give in to our anxious thoughts, but focusing on God’s truth will dispel them.

2 Corinthians 10:4 says, We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments.

We have spiritual enemies and sometimes we also do battle against our own minds. Either way. we have powerful weapons at our disposal that can make us victorious in the fight if we use them.

Pray with me:

Lord, today we cast our cares on You and give thanks for Your faithfulness. Help us to use the spiritual weapons at our disposal so that the peace You promise that goes beyond our human understanding will be ours. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

~

 Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.