Anxious Tides

I personally have battled with anxiety; I remember getting my first panic attack at the age of 10. Often like the tides of the ocean  anxious thoughts can seem to rise and spiral out of control leaving us feeling worse! I have learned getting to the root of my anxiety has helped me better identify triggers and quickly take my thoughts captive before they spiral out of control. It takes daily practice taking our thoughts captive but it is possible with Christ! 

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Transcript

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I'm Alexa Loryn, and welcome to my podcast heart of a seeker. Today's episode is called anxious tides, we'll be talking about anxiety and how it can rise up. And sometimes almost feel consuming like it's taking over like an ocean. I personally have dealt with anxiety from a very young age and depression. So I'll be speaking from a personal experience,

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I am not a

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mental health professional. So this is something that I have done to deal with my own anxiety and depression. And maybe it can help you too. So I'm going to share with you guys today, things that I have done, and in ways that I have learned to combat the waves of anxiety that sometimes try to overtake me personally. So I want to open up a prayer, I just want to say Father, God, thank you for today, I pray that you would just release any anxiety that is happening right now, Lord,

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from

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anyone listening for myself, Lord, I pray that you would begin to move through us and give us wisdom and peace, Father, God, maybe we just allow the waves of peace to crash over us, Father God and wash over us, Lord, and that your word would bring truth and light into our lives and that we will learn to clink on it so that we can have encouragement and that we can also have hope, Lord, in you in Jesus name we pray, Amen. I wanted to again, start off by talking about anxiety. And often when I'm going to talk about a message, I sometimes ask myself questions, and today I want to share some of the questions that I personally asked myself, what do you do? When your past keeps knocking? I feel that sometimes the past often can trigger our anxiety at times, depending what the route is, have you made choices in your life that have triggered during xiety? Because you're worried about it coming to light, or that maybe you didn't do something that you thought you should have done? Or you're dealing with the consequences of your past and something you did do. And so now you have anxiety, because of the route? So I kind of want to focus on getting to the root of what may be causing your anxiety as we journey through this episode together today. How do we combat these thoughts and feelings? What does the word of God say? In Matthew 634, it says, Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. sufficient for the day is its own trouble. David shows us to always try and towards God, in our anxiety in our reflection. In our depression, I often find a lot of comfort reading the Psalms, there been times and times again, I have just found so much encouragement through the Psalms because I often feel like David truly understands the struggle of the person who is battling anxiety and depression and struggling with grief and pain, and the consequences of his choices. In Psalms 2516, through 20, it says, For I am desolate and afflicted, the troubles of my heart have enlarged, bring me out of my distresses. Look on my affliction and my pain, and forgive all my sins. Consider my enemies, for they are many, and they hate me with cruel hatred, keep my soul and deliver me. Let me not be ashamed for I put my trust in you. There are a few things I want to point out in this passage. As for I am desolate and afflicted, he feels alone, he feels like no one's there. He doesn't know who to turn to. He feels all this, all this stuff on top of him all these burdens. And then it says the troubles of my heart have enlarged. And that just makes me even think personally when I've had anxiety and my heart is literally pounding and racing and I feel anxious. And I feel like oh my gosh, what am I going to do? Why did I do that? What are the consequences now oh my gosh, I must stop. And I begin to just have all these thoughts begin to just consume me and take over and it becomes to really take over in the sense of the troubles in my heart have enlarged and it says bring me out of my distresses. It's like Father God, please help me get out of this place that I'm in like help me take control of my thoughts and all the things that I'm struggling with because they're beginning to take over. Take over me as this look at my affliction and my pain and forgive me of all my sense. So sometimes the anxiety might come from the way we handled a particular situation. Maybe the way we treated At our spouse, the way we treated our child, maybe we lied, maybe we got abusive in a situation. Or we weren't good stewards of what God gave us, or we're just constantly worrying and not really turning towards God and trusting him. Then he goes on to say, consider my enemies, for they are many, and they hate me with cruel hatred. Sometimes we are so worried about what other people think about us. People might be talking bad about us behind our backs, or to our face. Maybe we feel rejected by people. But we have to realize that that's not our problem. If they feel a certain way about us, we need to just give that to God and continue forward. And then it says, keep my soul and deliver me. This was very interesting to me this part

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it was keep my soul it's like here, God, I give you my soul, I give you these anxious thoughts, I give you these things that are worrying me. And please deliver me in the process I'm submitting to you. And please deliver me from these feelings of anxiousness that he's struggling with. He says, let me not be ashamed. How many times in our past, have we allowed, or just in our present? Have we allowed the past to bring anxiety to be like, Oh, my gosh, I made the mistake. What if someone finds out what if you know, now you have to live with the consequences of the choices you made. And so if he's saying, like, don't allow me to be ashamed, he asked for forgiveness, he submits his heart to God, he tells him to be to please deliver him. And on top of that, he's now asking not to be ashamed. And so that, to me, shows me that David really saw God in the struggle, in the moments that he was really having a difficult time. So my question would then be, what is the root of your anxiety? What is the root of your anxiety? If you could stop and think for a moment, when anxiety begins to take over? What is normally the first thing you think of that begins to trigger the down spirals of thoughts. I just want you to take a moment to really think about that. And psalms 2713. David says, I would have lost heart unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I know I have personally felt this way that there are times where if it was not for my faith and believe in belief in God, that I probably would not be here today. There were so many times I allowed these down spirals of thoughts to consume me. And it was when I felt like that wave rising up those, those waves coming up on shore, and they just start kind of coming up and going higher and higher. And it's like, oh, my gosh, what am I going to do? And I had to learn in those moments, to seek God, I began to pray in those moments, I began to ask God to help me just like David shows us in the Psalms that to seek God. And 14, he goes on to say, wait on the Lord, Be of good courage, and he will strengthen your heart. Wait, I say on the Lord. Sometimes the anxiety might be coming from a place of impatience. Maybe you're being impatient. Maybe there's something you want to see come to pass in your life. But you are so busy trying to help God make that happen, that you're running ahead of him rushing into things that maybe you should not be rushing into, that are now causing anxiety, or you want to people please, you want to make somebody else happy. So you're denying yourself a what you feel is right, or you know, you should be doing to make that other person happy. And now you're struggling with the constant daily anxiety, because you're doing something that God did not call you to do. And so I love this verse where he says, wait on the Lord, Be of good courage, and he will strengthen your heart. So next time that maybe you're going to make a decision. It's okay to set boundaries. Sometimes the anxiety comes from not setting proper boundaries with people. I struggled with this for years. I didn't even know what boundaries was until my late 20s. I was probably like 2728 years old. I started learning about boundaries. And that it was okay to say no, I hadn't realized that so many times. My anxiety stemmed from wanting to please others from wanting to do what other people want me to do. Not doing what I felt was the right thing to do. And that began to cause a lot of anxiety in my life. And I didn't know how to say no And when I didn't say No, I'd put myself in positions, I was never supposed to be in the first place, because of my own doing. And later, I would be sitting there regretting the choices I made, or regretting the things I did, and then having to live with the consequences of those choices. What I love about David is that he's real. David is authentic.

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He is real about his struggle. I remember when I was married the first time and my ex husband was struggling with addiction. And I didn't want to talk to anybody about it, because I did not a want people to know my business. I didn't want them to know what was going on. And mind you, I was going to church at this time, I got baptized at the age of 21. And I had promised to submit myself fully to God, although my relationship with God started earlier than that. But it wasn't until I was 21, that I decided to really submit myself to God and the things of God. Now, unfortunately, I didn't have the best examples, nor did I love myself or know what self love was. And I was looking for somebody to give me the love. I always wanted and desired because I felt very empty growing up. I share all this to say that so many times, I remember in that relationship, I wanted to talk to someone. And I was like, Can someone please just be real with me? Because someone, please tell me their struggle? Can someone please tell me how they got through this. And I think that so many times we want to put on this persona, and act like we're a certain person, and not really allow people to see the hurt and pain in our heart. And I think that's what I love about David is that he came to the Father, he went to God and he was like, God, here I am. These are my mistakes. These are the things I'm struggling with. Please help me the Bible even says to seek Godly counsel, there's nothing wrong with going to speak to someone about your struggles and the things you're going through. I actually think it's very healthy to seek counseling, whether it's godly counseling, whether it's a therapist, whether it's a psychologist, whatever you feel the Lord is leading you to to get the help you need. There's nothing wrong with seeking someone to help guide you. So with that being said, I have learned to not only seek God, but I also personally went to Biblical counseling for over six years. I've also talked with mental health professionals as well in the past, to begin to learn to deal with some of the struggles, but it was the first step of me having to admit that I was having a very hard time and I needed help. So from there, I see this with David is that he goes and he talks to God, and he's not afraid to be real. And the best, the most beautiful thing is God already knows you. We can't hide from him. We can't pretend or put on that fake persona, because he sees right through it. He knows us He made us right. I remember sometimes I would try and lie to my dad. And I remember my dad would be like, you're my kid. I know you like the back of my hand. And it just kind of made me laugh. Because it was like, I wanted him to not know maybe something I was doing or I'd lied to him out of fear of him getting angry. But at the end of the day, I couldn't lie to my dad because he saw right through me. And there's a scripture in Psalms 139 four, where it says before a word is on my tongue. You know it completely. So what does that tell us? God formed us in our mother's womb. That's from Psalms 139. And this is verse four. And from there he says, but before a word is even on my tongue, you Lord know it completely. Meaning we can't hide from God. He already knows. So why are we not just coming and talking to him as a father and friend? When I was 19 years old, I was really having a difficult time at that point. I a little bit of what part of my issues were growing up was when I was 12 years old. I came to live with my dad, and my mom stayed in Niigata while my parents were divorced. And I personally began to fall into depression. I had a very hard time being away from my mother. I was a big Mama's girl, and my dad was not the most affectionate person growing up. So I had a very hard time my parents were polar opposite. My mom was extremely affectionate. My father was more of a business minded person. So I got a little bit of both worlds. But growing up, I had a very hard time kind of understanding what was happening. So by the age of 19, I was really struggling with depression, I was crying every single day, I had no idea I was depressed. And I remember at that point around the age of like, 1617, God had place two friends in my life that began to plant seeds in my heart and who God was. So at 19 at that point, I just was like I need to do something. Something needs to Because I cannot continue living like this.

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So I began to seek God. And I thought God, actually by myself, I went into my room, I began to pray to him, I began to look for him. It wasn't in a church, I eventually went looking for a church so I could connect with other people that could guide me and help me and teach me and connect with other like minded people. But Originally, it was a Bible in my bedroom, and me reading the Word of God and praying and listening to podcasts, actually, years ago. And ultimately, that's where my relationship with God began, when I began seeking Him and praying, and asking him to help me. And over time, I began to find comfort in the Word of God. And that's when I also realized God was my friend, and not just my father, but that I could actually talk to him like a friend, which is what I needed. Because I felt very alone growing up, I realized that God was that person for me that I could begin to journal and write, to and speak to, and I didn't feel alone. So what I like, as we continue to journey through psalms is in Psalms 20 867. David goes on to say, Blessed be the Lord, because he has heard my voice and my supplications, The Lord is my strength and my shield, my heart trusted in him, and I am helped. Therefore, my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song, I will praise Him. So I love how David shows us that a he was real, he was authentic. Then from there, he begins to just confess and just say, you know what, God, forgive me, my sense, please help me, he begins to cast his burdens and his anxiety upon God, and just from there continues, saying, you know what, wait on Him. Don't give up. Don't get discouraged, is what he's pretty much telling us. And in the end, he shows us, that God hears us, that God helps us that God delivers us. And then he rejoices. And then joy comes right? He becomes, and thanks him and says, bless me to God. So this week, I just want to encourage you to seek Him, and just begin to be real with him, talk with God, he already knows your struggles. Let him take it away. Put it at his feet. Let him begin to ministry to you and strengthen you. And if you need help, don't be afraid to go get counseling, don't be afraid to seek Godly wisdom. Don't be afraid to talk to somebody because sometimes we need that. And there's nothing wrong with that. I know it's helped me a lot personally. And just know that God is a God that keeps his promises and he cannot lie. And he will help us if we seek Him, and He will deliver us but we also have to see our part. What is the trigger? What are the things that we're doing? Are we trying to people please? Are we trying to let other outside circumstances, you know, that we can't control cause our anxiety? Are we constantly worrying? What are the trigger? What is the root of our anxiety, and that's something I want us to think about this week, and begin to give it to God as we begin to tear down and pull out those roots. So right now Father, God, in the name of Jesus, I thank you for this word. I think you that you're a good Father, I pray that we can rejoice and thank you for being able to deliver us and that we would submit everything to you, Father God, I pray now the name of Jesus, that anxiety will not stay when the tides try to come, Lord, that we would submit it quickly to you that we would take every thought captive submitted at your feet, that we would be quick to ask for forgiveness when we make a mistake, that we would begin to see the areas in our lives that maybe we're not making the right choices that might be the root of our anxiety. So today we just asked you for revelation. And we asked for peace, Lord, that your perfect peace would come upon us Lord, as we submit things to you in Jesus name we pray, Amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai