I remember as a kid, I would see how big I could make the balloon get it popped. I sometimes would compete with friends to see who could make it bigger. This idea has even worked itself in to carnival games!
The bigger I blew up the balloon, the more it filled the space of which I could see, and pretty soon, all I saw was a big balloon in front of me. It was massive, probably red, because I liked red balloons, and it was taking all my time and energy.
Then it would pop.
On the floor would be remnants of a stretched out red balloon that had nothing left to show for itself but scraps on the floor.
It was just full of hot air. There was no substance to it, and yet, at the time, it seemed like the biggest thing in front of me.
That's how I often have felt when it comes to anxiety. It looms large and takes up a lot of space in my mind and my heart.
I have struggled with anxiety for quite some time, as I am sure many of you have. There have been times that it has felt crippling. It seemed to be the largest thing in the room.
Yet I am realizing something to be true:
Anxiety doesn't tell the truth.
I was reading through Matthew 6:25-34 and the Holy Spirit used this passage to remind me of some things that are true about anxiety:
It minimizes my ability to think effectively, bringing me to a place of compulsive worrying and ineffective overthinking. It's like being in a hamster wheel stuck on a treadmill. It's exhausting and goes nowhere.
It diminishes proper focus on situations at hand, keeping me fixated and agitated about the smallest things that loom large in my mind. It's the largest balloon right in front of me filled with nothing but hot air.
It weakens my trust in others, It makes me think me think that people that are for me are my adversaries and that no one can be trusted. It creates in me a defense posture toward those who seek to provide me safety.
It diminishes my faith in God. I begin to believe that God is something that He actually is not. It distorts my image of God who made me into a false idea of who I think He is what I think He can do, which keeps me distant from Him.
It distorts the truth of my own value. It tells me false ideas of who I am not and what I can't do. Like a megaphone, it becomes the loudest voice in the room. Just because it's loud doesn't mean it's true.
it diminishes the power of the moment I am in. I can't enjoy the beautiful moments I find myself in because I am stuck worrying about the hypothetical things that probably never will happen.
The more I remember these things, the more I realize anxiety is a liar.
My pray for you is the same one I pray for myself. Let the truth of scripture be greater than the lies of anxiety in my heart, and my the loudest voice in my head be the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking life in to who I am and who God has called me to be.
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