Moving Forward with Out Fear and Anxiety

I have a confession to make. It's something that I believe is personal to me but I have a feeling I'm not alone in this. I have suffered from a spirit of fear and anxiety for many years. It creeps and sneaks into my life when ever I let my guard down every time I think it's beat I turn and it's back ready to consume me again. I know that God did not give me the spirit of fear (2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV). This is not of God so I know that I need to let it go. I have struggled with this for several years. Worry and fear have consumed me at times and I have made bad decisions based on fear and not on faith.

It starts out with a small worry and when I don't give it to God and insist on handling it myself it gets bigger and bigger until it takes over my mind. My fears are typically about money, career, my children and my health. Sometimes they are based on a small storm in my life like an overdraft charge on my checking account. Other times it's a negative thought about something bad that MIGHT happen with the only evidence of a real threat coming from my own anxious mind.

At this point in my life I can't say that my life is anxiety free but it's getting there. I always keep in the fore front of my mind that their is no trial that I have gone through that I haven't been brought through. Their is no bad situation that I haven't been delivered from. If I'm still in it I'm still learning from it. I'm fairly young but the list is long and I expect that the list will get longer because every time I go through something I am reassured of God's presence in my life.

A question I ran across in Essence Magazine's January 2008 issue on the last pages of all pages was a question posed by Susan Taylor the Editorial Director. The Article entitled Heaven on Earth asked of the reader to ask themselves: How would I feel if I courageously let go of all anger and disappointment about the past and my fear and anxiety about the future? How would I seek, serve and love this year if I believed I was perfectly and permanently secure in the arms of God?

I realized that I've been holding on to anxiety. Asking God to take it away but yet at the same time refusing to give away the false security that anxiety gives me. Anxiety represents my inability to let go of the wheel and let Jesus take it. Praying for God to order my steps however not being in the word enough to know what He is trying to say. I keep trying to go at it alone and I don't need to. It's amazing how God has moved in my life when I just decided to be still.

I am safe in His arms and so are you!

Joshua 1:9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”