Fear-Worry-Anxiety Continuum

Matthew 14:22-36  22 Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. 23 After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, 24 and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. 25 Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. 27 But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” 28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” 29 “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” 31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” 32 And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. 33 Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

 

Growing up, I often experienced fear. I worried a lot. At times, anxiety got the best of me. I’ve never liked scary movies, but I went to extremes. At sleepovers, I was the kid pulling my sleeping bag over my head during fairly tame PG movies. As a teenager, it was common for me to intentionally walk out of movies and go to the restroom during scary parts. During a few seasons of my childhood and teen years, I experienced intrusive thoughts. I suffered from repetitive thought loops. My mind was very loud and heavy. Next week, I’ll devote the entire sermon to intrusive thought loops. Some of this, I grew out of. Some of this, not so much. At times, I’m fearful. At times, I struggle with worry. At times, I have to confront anxiety. I’m speaking of normal times. Then, you add a global pandemic. That adds a complicated layer.

 

As we continue our series on relational and emotional health, I want to share a helpful resource.  I want to recommend the book “Raising Worry-Free Girls” by Sissy Goff. She targets the book for parents of girls, but I believe this book can be helpful for all ages and both genders. It really helped me. This morning, I want to share some thoughts mainly from the first chapter of her book and then connect back to this reading from Matthew 14.

 

Goff explains a worry continuum that increases in intensity. We start with fear which expands to worry which results in anxiety. It slowly grows from something outside of us to something inside of us. We’re afraid of something. We’re worried about something. This leads to “I am anxious.” Fear is close by. Worry is on us. Anxiety is in us. Notice how it’s external and then becomes internal. 

 

No matter our age, we experience fear. Infants and toddlers fear separation. Preschool kids fear monsters and ghosts. Elementary kids fear storms and things they overhear like kidnapping or robbery or even death. Middle school teens fear social embarrassment or failure from failing a test to forgetting their lines in a play. High school teens fear social and romantic rejection as well as the choices surrounding college and work. Adults fear being able to pay the bills, how their kids will turn out, and how to navigate marital and family conflict. No matter our age, we have fears.

 

How do we get past our fears?  How do we survive and thrive in the midst of fear? Goff says that fear passage involves experience and trust. Let that soak in. Getting over, getting through, fear involves experience and trust.

 

As we get older, we have more and more experiences. Things that are scary become less so as we gain experience. We may be afraid of staying home alone, getting a flat tire, or having to confront a teacher or boss, but as we have those experiences and get passed them, the fear diminishes. Kids, you probably have similar experiences of being afraid of riding a bike or swimming in the deep end of the pool. As your experience grows, you get less afraid. Growing up, I had a lot of fear of being alone. Over time, as I stayed home more and more by myself, my confidence grew.  Still, I must say that fear was never completely overcome until I began to live alone after college. At times, even as someone in my 20s, I would hear noises during the night and get scared. Over time though, the positive experiences of pushing through that piled up. I grew to trust God more and more. I also grew to trust myself more, to trust what God was doing in me.

 

Over time, your experiences help you realize what you shouldn’t fear. Growing up, there were things I feared that experience has taught me not to fear.  Recently, at a family function, we talked about childhood fears. My brother in law said to me, I always thought that quicksand would play a much larger role in my life than it has. I laughed so hard when he said that, because it’s also true for me. Growing up, falling in quicksand was a common plot line in cartoons like Loony Toons, TV shows like Gilligan’s Island, and movies like Swiss Family Robinson.  I feared quicksand, and I spent a lot of time plotting how I would get out of quicksand if I ever fell in. However, I’ve never encountered quicksand, at any point in my life. Experience has taught me I don’t need to waste any emotional or physical energy on that fear. It’s not going to happen.

 

Still, it’s normal to have fears. Don’t feel bad about yourself when you have fears. Know this though. We overcome fear through experience and trust. We overcome fear by experiences of God getting us through things which leads to trusting the Lord even more. Back at the beginning of May, we had a night when we commemorated the 10th anniversary of the flood. During that challenging time, God was with us. God brought us through it. Because of that experience, I trust God to get our congregation through the pandemic. That’s an example of how experience leads to trust.

 

However, none of us have ever experienced a pandemic before. That’s what makes this unique and difficult. It has an unknown quality to it. As Paul said in our prayer time with Lawrence Avenue, “if knew a date when this would all be over, it would be easier.” We don’t have that date, though. I’m not trying to get Frozen 2 stuck in your head, but it’s that journey into the unknown that makes this fear so challenging.

 

For many of us, including me, the fears of this season lead me down the continuum to worry. The fear in the air and around me, becomes a burden of worry on me. I can feel it pressing down.  As a teenager, my older brother and I both liked basketball. We were always on the lookout to find something that would make us stronger, faster, and better players.  One year, he bought ankle weights. These weights were 3-4 pounds. You tied them around your ankles, and they rested on top of your shoe. You did your normal running and training, just with a tad more weight. I remember using them some myself. If I left them on long enough, I forgot about them. Then, when I took them off, I felt so free. Worry becomes a weight we get used to. If we can take it off, we’ll travel a lot lighter.

 

There’s a fine line between wise concern and the weight of worry. It’s hard to know when you’ve crossed that line.  During this season, we’re processing endless health information, and it’s good to be informed. At some point though, it can become paralyzing. It can become a weight. We need to be wise, but we don’t need to carry the weight of the pandemic on our shoulders alone. 

 

In my life, when it becomes unproductive, I think of the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? When I find myself stuck in trying to figure out every single detail of this fall and winter, I remind myself that it reaches a level where it’s not productive. Planning is helpful. Worry becomes unproductive and eventually harmful.  I think of Matthew 6:33-34.33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.  We need to be wise and prepared. But when it crossed over into a burden of worry, we need to name it for what it is. Worry is an unhealthy burden.  Through experience and trust in God, we can deescalate our position on the continuum. In this same passage in Matthew 6, that’s what Jesus refers to. Remind yourself of the birds and the flowers. God takes care of them. God will take care of you. It’s gonna be alright. Release the burden of worry. 

 

If left unchecked though, worry becomes anxiety.  While worry is on you, anxiety is in you. In many ways, anxiety is a state of being.  There can be many causes for anxiety-trauma, genetics, personality, environment, or life circumstances. As Goff says, “people with anxiety overestimate the threat and underestimate themselves and their ability to cope.” Therefore, part of treating anxiety is recovering an accurate picture of the threat as well as embracing your strength, God’s strength in you. 

 

Goff does a great job of naming some of the anxiety patterns we fall into. Many children and teens think about the worst thing imaginable and then fall down the continuum from fear to worry to anxiety. Maybe it’s the fear of throwing up in public. For some, that sounds like the worst thing imaginable. Even if they’ve never thrown up in public, it’s the scariest thing they can think of. Therefore, for some, it becomes a debilitating anxiety. Some kids stay home because they fear they might throw up at school even though they’ve never done it. They have to reclaim their power and walk through how nausea often comes gradually and how they could get to a bathroom if needed.  It doesn’t help when well-intentioned people say, “stop worrying.” They have to go through the path of experience and trust themselves. 

 

Goff shows how many “good kids” fear doing bad things. Therefore, they can fall into worry and anxiety patterns over the scariest things they can imagine. As they get older, for many, these thought patterns can become violent and sexual in nature. To be clear, that doesn’t mean they’re likely to do those things. It’s just the scariest thing a good kid can imagine, so they worry about it.  You may have had this experience of being so afraid of something that you worried you might do it, even though there was no way you were going to do it.

 

I’ll give you an example. As a kid, I had anxiety about going to prison for robbing a bank. I knew robbing a bank was really bad. At least once a month, I accompanied my dad on a trip to the bank. Inevitably, I’d daydream about how to rob the bank. I was just a kid daydreaming. But, at times, I grew afraid because it seemed so bad. At times when I was alone with my thoughts, I had anxiety about being a bank robber. That may sound bizarre but know this. Many of us have debilitating anxiety over things like this.  In our minds, the problem becomes large, and we become small. 

 

In 1 Peter 5:7, we read, “cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” Jesus loves us. Jesus is with us. Jesus wants to take our anxiety and our worry. Jesus calls us out of fear. That’s easier said than done. Too often, in religious circles, we can say, “stop worrying, just trust God.” That can make us feel guilty and end up making things worse. We don’t want to do that. If you struggle with worry and anxiety, we are not questioning your faith.

 

We simply want to say this. We are with you. Jesus is with you. Let’s deescalate the continuum together. We see this in the story of Peter.  When they first see Jesus, they have great fear. Jesus takes away their fear. Then, Peter wants to be with Jesus on the waters. But as he does, his fear returns. The beauty of the story lies here. Jesus comes and picks him up. Jesus does not let him drown. Jesus is with us.  Life is a series of falling down and getting up. Jesus is always there for us. 

 

Goff says we get past fear through experience and trust. We see this in the life of Peter. Ultimately, Peter was a great Christian leader who boldly gave his life for Christ, all the way to his martyrdom. But there was a lot of sinking along the way. There were a lot of experiences, good and bad, that over time increased his trust in the Lord.  It took years, but Peter’s fear went away.

 

Let me share an example from my own life. As you know, my mother passed away in a car accident when I was 8.  In the accident, she sat on the rear driver’s side of the car. Therefore, in my childhood mind, that was the most dangerous place to sit. In fact, I feared either side. I survived our family’s car accident by sitting in the middle seat, and I was determined to sit in the middle seat the rest of my life. We had a daily carpool arrangement for school. I refused to get in the car unless I could sit in the middle. A gracious lady who I called Aunt Lynn (not blood related) always had that seat reserved and open for me. I do remember another occasion when I had to ride in rear passenger side the door, though. I was petrified, convinced the entire time I was about to die. But, I didn’t. We arrived safely. That experience taught me that I could ride by the window. For awhile, I got to where I’d sit on the rear passenger side, but it took a long time before I could sit on the rear driver side, the seat where my mother died. And the first time I did sit there, it was so so difficult. To an outside observer, I probably looked crazy. But I’m so thankful for those who patiently walked through all of that with me.

 

How did I get through that? Experience and trust. I learned that car accident are rare, and death by car accidents is even more rare. When I see the TDOT signs reminding us that 1000 people die each year on TN roads, it hits home. But I still drive. I still ride in cars. I learned to calculate the risk through experiences. And I learned to trust. Part of that is this-I’ve learned to trust that even if I do die in a car accident, I believe Jesus will bring me back from the dead. In fact, I credit the belief in resurrection to be the main thing that has alleviated my anxiety and worry.  Experience and trust-the pathway to overcoming the fear-worry-anxiety continuum.

 

I pray this pandemic can be this for us. My worry and anxiety have been heightened in this time. If you’re the same way, we do not judge you. We are with you.  If your situation, continues, I encourage you to see a counselor. That has helped me. I encourage seeing a healthcare provider. No two situations are the same, and I don’t want to claim I know your complete path towards healing. But know this-you’re not alone. We all have unique journeys, but there’s a lot of similarities between us. Let’s lean on each other. Let’s lean on Jesus.

 

Lord Jesus, take away our fear. Quench our worry. Heal our anxiety. Give us trust. Grant us faith. Let us come to you on the waters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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