Is it possible that anxiety begins in our heart? In the Bible, the heart represents the command center of the whole person, encompassing your thoughts, intellect, emotions, and willpower. Our heart is the core of our being, our soul. Our anxiety is more than a psychological phenomenon. It’s beginning is from deep inside our soul that eventually manifests in mental anguish and physiological symptoms. Our concerns that bring on anxiety vary. We are anxious about the future, our finances, our health, just to name a few. It’s the uncertainty of things that primes the anxiety pump.
Proverbs 3:5-6 provides us with a clear picture of the problem and the solution. Let’s start with what I see as the problem. Verse 5 says, “lean not on your own understanding.” That’s our problem when anxiety takes over our lives. We are trusting in ourselves, in our limited understanding of things. If we truly knew what tomorrow held, would it lessen our anxiety? Or, would our anxiety increase? Maybe we are better off not knowing. What if we knew that tragedy would strike us in the near future? Would this take our anxiety away? My guess is “no.” We would worry even more. Our soul would be restless. Yet, we still get anxious about the future. We try to understand with limited knowledge and when we can’t make sense out of it we get anxious. God knew this, that’s why Proverbs 3:5 tells us to not lean on our own understanding. So, what’s the solution?
Proverbs 3:5 gives us the solution before presenting us with the reason for our anxiety. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart.” Remember, our heart represents our soul, the very core of our being. Trusting God with all our heart is to trust Him with the core of our existence. The depth of our being, our soul. When we trust God with all of our soul we don’t have to worry about the future. It frees us to live in the here and now. Our anxiety has us living in the future, and this robs us of experiencing life today. So, we need to stop leaning on our own understanding and start trusting God from the core of our being. When we do this we give up control of things we can do nothing about. Yes, we need to plan for our future, but we don’t have to live there. By trusting God, we allow HIm to take care of tomorrow.
Verse 6 tells us “in all your ways submit to HIm.” Submitting to God is what needs to be done to relieve our anxiety. I understand the difficulty of this. Wanting to be in control is what I think almost every day. This goes back to my days drinking. I wanted to control every aspect of my life. The truth is, I wasn’t in control, the alcohol was. We control very little. When we try to be in control we are giving up our freedom. We aren’t in control. The thing that gives us our sense of control is. So by submitting all our ways to God we gain freedom from trying to be in control. Look at the results of submitting all our ways to God. “He will make our paths straight” (v.6). Our anxiety creates a crooked path that makes it difficult to see ahead. We can’t see beyond the twists and turns. By submitting to God our winding, twisting path becomes straight. Now we have a better chance to see ahead. We need to tuck Proverbs 3:5-6 in our hearts and return to it as many times as possible. Trust and submit, that’s how we can deal with our anxiety.
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