Praying Scripture: When Anxiety Strikes

-
          Prayer for when Anxiety Strikes
            Psalm 55:22:  “Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.”
            Philippians 4:6-7:  “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
            John 14:27:  “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
            Lord, You say that we can present to You all of our concerns and needs.  You say that You will never let us fall, that You will sustain us, and that we will be filled with Your peace, if we are praying with thanksgiving.  Well, I am pouring out my fears and doubts and concerns right now to You.  I am acknowledging how weak I am and that I need You.  I am casting my cares on You because they are too heavy for me.  They are too much for me to handle and I need Your help.  I need to put them in Your hands and let go of them because the weight is crushing me. 
            And I thank You for all of Your faithfulness in the past, how You have always helped me through the hard times and have never left me alone.   I thank You that You can carry the things that I can’t.  Now Lord, please, I need Your peace, the kind of peace that protects my heart and mind in Christ Jesus.  I feel scared and vulnerable and fragile and so broken.  I have no peace of my own.  I need Yours, please.  Thank You for being a God that truly cares about us and that won’t leave us alone in our pain.  Thank You for being faithful.  Thank You for being there, even if no one else is.  

[An update from Nov 2017, posted on another blog of mine:
Just yesterday (November 27), I got so "stress sick" over a health concern for one of my children.  Lately, it seems as if I have been falling into a huge, black hole of despair where all I can do is cry out to the Lord, "Please, come back.  I hate this place.  I hate life sometimes.  I want You to come back and get us out of here.  Please, come back, Lord." 

I have really been hurting inside.  And the stress of everything makes me feel like I just want this life to be over.  I want Jesus to come back again.  I feel so little hope or peace or rest.  And this is not an easy place to be in.  It makes every day a chore.  I'm struggling.  I'm really struggling. 

But in between the tears yesterday and the "sick to my stomach" feeling and the tension pain in my back, I found two things that helped.

1.  As I felt myself starting to spiral into full-fledged panic, I thought to myself, "I can't do it anymore.  I can't carry this burden.  The fear, the unknown.  I can't have this decision rest on me.  I'm not strong enough.  I'm cracking." 

And that's when it hit me (again) that sometimes there's only one thing to do when you feel like the anxiety will break you and you are too weak to carry a burden ... and that's to drop it. 

Just drop that burden right there on the ground in your mind and tell the Lord, "I'm done with this burden.  I can't carry it anymore.  I'm not strong enough.  And so I'm dropping it at Your feet right now.  You are going to have to do something with it.  You are going to have to carry it and sort it out, because trying to do it on my own is killing me.  I'm done.  It's Yours now.  I trust You more than I trust myself anyway.  Please, carry this burden for me.  I'm done with it!"

Of course, that doesn't mean that we won't still have to make a decision eventually or take some sort of action, but it does mean that we can rest in Him until then - until He shows us the next step, when it's time to take it. 

I can make myself so sick struggling with the "what ifs" and "but what abouts," with speculation and the unknown details, with the fear of this possibility or that possibility.

But God promises to lead us in the right path if we abide in Him.  We don't have to know all the details ahead of time.  (We don't get to know the details ahead of time anyway, no matter how much we try to figure it out.)  We don't have to wonder about "what if" and "but what about."  He knows all that already.  We just have to listen for when He says it's time to do something.  And until then, sometimes the only thing we can do is drop our fears and anxieties at His feet, declare that we are done with them for now, and let Him worry about them for us.


2.  And once again, I am brought back to the incredible power and encouragement of praying Scripture, of praying God's truth.  This morning, I decided that instead of praying in despair that God would come back and end it all, I was going to find some biblically-sound prayers that other people posted on-line, prayers that relate to anxiety and spiritual warfare.  And I prayed them out loud.  And as I did, I could feel a small bit of peace flood my anxious soul and slowly grow.


While these prayers are not necessarily "praying Scripture" prayers, they are good, helpful, truth-filled prayers.  And there are links to other specific prayers on the side-bars of these sites.  If you still need more prayers, google things like "prayers for spiritual warfare" or "praying Scripture back to God" or "prayers for fear, anxiety, encouragement, etc."  And see what other godly people share.  Just be discerning and steer clear of ones that sound too "out there," too mystical and not biblically-sound.  (For starters, try http://greatbiblestudy.com if you are looking for some emotional help and spiritual warfare information.  I haven't read it all, but it's worth a look.)

When our own words fail us or cause us more anxiety, turn to Scripture, to God's Truth, to helpful words from other godly people, to the reality of spiritual warfare and how to battle in it, and even to godly music (click on the links in the side-bar).

And if you want to make your own "Scripture-based prayers" the way I do, simply find verses that speak to what you are going through and then reword them into a prayer, relevant to you and adding the proper pronouns to make it personal.  Remind God of His promises and remind yourself of His truth.  And then pray these prayers out loud.  Write them down even, if you want to.  These prayers seem to carry so much more weight and power than our own words do, especially when our own words are filled with panic and fear and despair.

]
  


Most Popular Posts of the Week:

Scariest Halloween decoration ever?

-
So it's Halloween time again, huh?  Is it just me, or has there been a big increase in the amount of Halloween decorations in people's yards? I don't decorate for Halloween, nothing more than maybe a few pumpkins.  But a neighbor and I were talking the other day, and she inadvertently stumbled on what I think would make the best Halloween decoration.  Something truly terrifying.  And if I had more guts, I'd maybe consider doing it someday. She was reading out loud some reported quotes from famous atheists just before their death, and I thought Now that would make a scary Halloween display in your yard, a collection of tombstones with atheist quotes on them!    Quotes such as these: David Strauss , who spread German rationalism to erase people's belief in God: "My philosophy leaves me utterly forlorn!  I feel like one caught in the merciless jaws of an automatic machine, not knowing at what time one of its great hammers may crush me!" Thomas Paine , atheis
Read more

More "American Noise"

-
A Skillet CD (yes, I still listen to and prefer Cd's.  I'm that old!) is in the player of our van right now.  And because I hate switching CD's if I don't have to, sorting through dozens of them, trying to find one I'm in the mood for... I leave the Skillet one in the player and just keep listening to the same song over and over again (with a few other songs thrown in too): American Noise.   I really like this song. Anyway, it made me think of the post I wrote about it 5 1/2 years ago now (wow, time flies!).  And after re-reading that post, I decided to print it again, because it stills fits.  In fact, there's even more noise in America now - in the world - than there was then.  (Anyone else getting sick of it all too?) So here it is, the previous post on it: I was driving the other day, and this song began playing from a CD my husband had in the CD player.  I had never heard it before, but for some reason, it struck me.  I don't know why, but it did.  It s
Read more

The Bible vs. Calvinism: An Overview by Patrick Myers (a great resource)

-
 A friend of mine recently sent me a link to an article that she says is one of the best overviews of Calvinism and its errors that she's read.  And after reading it, I agree.  I think it's a great one to share with others because it's got all the basics in one place: The Bible vs. Calvinism: An Overview by Patrick Myers There are some great rebuttals to Calvinist proof-texts in here, and some eye-opening quotes from Calvinists.  Something like this might help Calvinists understand what their theology  really  teaches and what the Bible  really  teaches - and that these aren't saying the same thing.   FYI: If you click on the "about/contact" link at the bottom of the article, you can send him an email to request a PDF copy of his article.   And after I contacted him by email to tell him how much I appreciated his article, he graciously put a link to my anti-Calvinism blog at the bottom.  Thank you, Patrick, that was very kind of you. 😊
Read more

How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist (simplified version)

-
(For the extended version of this post, which I recommend, click here .  It is loaded with lots more information.  This simplified one is just the highlights.  And feel free to copy this and share it with others, to help them learn to identify Calvinism when they see it.  Just make sure to share the link to this post so that they can find the original one if they want it.  Thank you.   New :  For the super-short version,   click here .   And FYI:  I found a couple times when the Calvinist author of an article I linked to changed the article after I linked to it.  So if an article doesn't seem to match what I said about it, it may be because they altered it. ) We just left our church of almost 20 years because of the dogmatic Calvinist pastor who recently came on board.  ( Read my "Letter to Our Elders Regarding Calvinism Growing in Our Church" here.)   And I was thinking about what precautions I might take to make sure we didn't end up in another Calvinist church
Read more

In "Honor" of Halloween: My Story of Demonic Harassment (repost)

-
Image
(Reposted from last year and retold in various other posts.  I may just repost this one yearly at this time of year.) In “honor” of Halloween (a day that deserves no honor), I’m gonna share with you why we don’t celebrate Halloween.   (We take our kids to a movie instead, or buy a movie they’ve been wanting and have a “family movie night” with candy and popcorn.   So no need to feel sorry for them; they are not deprived.)   I don’t expect anyone to believe me, but I’m going to share my story.    (And for the longer version of this story on my other blog, click here .)  It’s my story about how I came to fully trust in Jesus’s name and to passionately cling to Him, to never be able to doubt the existence of a spirit world, to place such a high priority on prayer and God’s Word, and to always remember my need for spiritual armor.   And once again, you don’t have to believe me.   (But don’t say I never warned you.   And if you are a skeptic and get nothing from this whole section, jus
Read more

"The Last Goodbye" - A song for us Hobbits

-
(a post from my other blog , from March 28, 2022) There's a song at the end of  The Battle of the Five Armies  (from the Hobbit trilogy) that's become one of my favorite songs.  I feel this song, especially the line about "Many places I have been, many sorrows I have seen..."  That's kinda been my last several years: many sorrows I have seen.   Many trials.  Many heartbreaks.  (Everyone who lives long enough will have many of these.) Most recently, I had the awful experience of being on the witness stand for three hours, giving testimony against my mom.  And after nearly a week of trial, she was found guilty of ... well, of something really bad.  (She insists she didn't do it, but we think otherwise.  It's not exactly like the prosecution says, but close enough.)  And now she will spend her life in prison.   Many sorrows I have seen. I don't know if I'll ever see her again.  The last memory I have of her could very well be her sitting in the courtr
Read more

List of Calvinist Preachers, Authors, Theologians, Websites, etc.

-
I  found a lot more names to add to my list of known Calvinists (found in my various  "How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist"  posts).  But instead of adding this huge list to all those posts, I am going to put it here, and I'll just provide a link on those posts to this one.  [FYI: I added a note at the bottom of this post on May 5, 2021.] So here it is, a "master list" of known Calvinists to help you be careful and discerning about who you listen to and where you get your theology from.  There are plenty more Calvinists out there, but these are just the names that I ran across the most.   These are either definite, self-professed Calvinists or "most likely Calvinist," in my estimation.  (I haven't heard of most of them, but it's good to know their theology before I do.)   After finding these names in various places online, I looked up each person to see if they are Calvinist.  If they did not self-identify as a Calvinist, I
Read more

Calvinism doesn't rescue anyone

-
Image
Calvinism doesn’t rescue any sinner from hell.  Because the elect were never on their way to hell, never at risk of going to hell at any point in time ... and the non-elect can never be rescued from hell because Calvi-Jesus never died for them and because Calvi-god made it impossible for them to believe. All Calvinism does is convince some people that they’ve always been saved without ever having to do anything about it, not even choosing to believe in Jesus (because in Calvinism, we  can't  choose to believe), while convincing others that they can never be saved, that God doesn’t love them, that Jesus didn’t die for them, and that there’s no hope for them. A lie from the pit of hell.  Destroying the evangelical church from the inside out.  And it will cost people their souls. [A comment I left on the Soteriology 101 post  "(Re)Thinking through Romans 9" , with a few small alterations.  And of course, not all Calvinists will word things this way.  They will try to soften
Read more

Why Would Anyone Follow Jesus?

-
As I was listening to a Christian radio station, they interviewed a random woman on the street who said, “I think the writers of the Bible just made it up to get people to follow them.” And I laughed out loud at the thought of that.  I wanted to ask her if she ever really read the Bible, if she knew what it teaches.  Because if she did, she would have to wonder why anyone would make up some of the things we find in the Bible and think it would cause people to go, "Oh yeah, that sounds great to me!" If you were going to make up a religion and try to get followers, you certainly wouldn’t tell us that ... 1.   We are sinful and cannot rescue ourselves. (How judgmental, discouraging and helpless sounding is that?) 2.   We need a Savior to rescue us. (How humbling!) 3.   Some of the early leaders of the faith were persecuted and killed for it, and we also should expect to be persecuted and hated by the world. ( Who in their right mind would want that?  Stephen wa
Read more

"I have no clue what you're talking about."

-
Image
The other day, I told my sons that if they can't find the official "doggie bags," they can use plastic grocery-store bags (we have an over-abundance of them) to clean up after our dog on walks.   In response, my 13-year-old son delighted to inform me that "Mom, if you use a Walmart bag to clean up dog poop on the side of the road, you'll look like a crazy lady.  Especially with the kind of hair you have." Me:
Read more