Getting Out Of The Anxiety Cycle

There was a time in my life when I had so much anxiety that I could barely sleep at all, or if I did sleep, I slept poorly. When I awakened, I dreaded the day ahead. I either couldn’t eat or I ate too much. At the end of each day, I desperately needed to escape through pleasure, entertainment or working out. I was afraid and I lived in fear on almost every level—my personal relationships, my financial situation, my career, and even when I forced myself to think about it—my eternal future. I was terrified of dying! The most tragic aspect of this situation is that I was already a born-again believer! 

Seriously???

How is it that someone who has Jesus Christ living in their soul and spirit can be trapped in such a self-destructive cycle of anxiety?

There are two reasons that I had fallen into this cycle of anxiety. 

First, after I was born again, I grew in my head knowledge of the scripture, but I did not understand the relational side of being a born-again believer. I was about the rules and not the relationship because I had never learned to see God for who He is. The rules don’t change the inside. God’s Spirit needs to change us from the inside out. Jesus said 

“If you LOVE Me, keep My commandments.”

John 14:15

I needed to develop my relationship with God, so I would obey Him out of love—not fear. 

Second, I did not realize that continuing to live in sin—that is to love sin in any form—would terrorize me and steal my peace. I had never learned to mourn over my sin as I would mourn for the death of one of my children. Thus, I had never learned the meaning of godly repentance—which I had experienced when I accepted the gift of salvation—but had failed to realize was also necessary for Christian living if I was to experience peace.

Sin—in any form—creates a terrorist cell within us and eventually destroys our peace.

And it nearly always starts with “small” sins. But they’re not EVER small. One white lie turns into a great deception. One flirtatious moment turns into an affair. One provocative outfit creates attention that becomes addictive. One missed quiet time leads to another. One act of unforgiveness leads to bitterness. You get the picture. We cannot harbor our favorite sins and expect to be close to the Prince of Peace—who died in agony for those sins! 

Sin causes every tragedy. 

Sin causes anxiety and robs us of the peace of Christ.

Sin causes us to forget who we are and why we were created. 

Sin causes death.

As a born-again believer, we will only have the peace of an abundant life, if we allow God to change us from the inside out. This is why the Be-attitude study was so pivotal in my Christian growth!! Jesus laid out an entire checklist about how to live in peace. In one of the final beatitudes, Jesus promised: 

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

Matthew 5:9

We can’t be a peacemaker unless you have peace yourself. No terrorist makes peace. Sin terrorizes us. God’s love frees us. God’s love is a two-way street—we must love Him so much that we choose His ways instead of the ways of terrorism. Sin causes conflict and we cannot have peace while being a party to the conflict. 

Makes sense, doesn’t it?

So how do you get out of the cycle of anxiety? 

First and foremost—you CANNOT have peace unless you are born again! When we are born again, we have the opportunity to become intimate with Jesus. But we must be discipled—which requires discipline!!! I spent 7 years in undergraduate and graduate school to become an attorney. How much time and effort am I willing to dedicate to my Biblical education? Is church on Sunday and reading a daily devotional enough to unlearn all my destructive habits from years of living without Jesus in me?  

The entire reason for this website is to disciple and spread the Gospel. That’s why the devotionals are not always short thoughts—they are meant to make us warriors. I spent years as a Christian who did not know how to share the Gospel and I lost a myriad of opportunities to even share my own story of salvation. Then God, in His mercy, pulled me out of my cycle of anxiety. But—it’s so easy to fall back into it because our enemies are constantly on the prowl seeking to terrorize us back into the prison of sin. 

Jesus offers us HIS peace and when we make Him the center of our life—we become peacemakers!