Last week I had a prayer request from a woman who thought she was losing her baby. She pressed her hands on her stomach, but nothing. she tried moving around, drinking something cold, but nothing. Her unborn child had either been quiet for quite a while, or something was wrong. She had two choices. panic or faith.
Maybe you have the same choice to make in your life right now. I discovered a formula that can help you beat panic if you accept its words by faith and put them into practice. It’s found in Philippians 4-9.
Paul says we should rejoice in God, and not panic, bringing all matters to the Lord in prayer. Next, we choose where we place our thoughts, and what we feed them. Whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy — that should be our focus.
When the woman’s baby went quiet, she decided to believe that her baby would “not die but live and would proclaim what the Lord has done”. She was happy to hear the beautiful heartbeat coming through the machine. She was aware that the outcome could have been different, but she decided from then on to deal with things as they came from the point of view of faith, not panic.
Today, we have choices to make what will be our approach? remembering the good in someone who’s hurt you and choosing to make peace with them. Maybe it is deciding to trust that God is holding the aeroplane you are about to board in His care and has commanded His angels to watch over you. Or perhaps it is accepting that He loves you beyond what you could ever imagine. So, if you’ve messed up, you can choose to believe it’s not over and turn to Him again, knowing He is not finished with you yet. Don’t Panic exercise faith.
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.” Philippians 4:8
Let’s Pray
Yahweh, I come to you because I need my mind shifted. I want my thoughts to be aligned with yours. I want my mind to be transformed. Teach me to choose faith over panic. God reminds me of your truth when darkness fills my thinking. Remind me of your love when I cease to believe it. Hold me close to you when panic is one of my choices. I love you, Lord. In Christ’s name Amen.
Anxiety is not that simple because it is often misunderstood to be simply that a person is stressing too much. There is a distinct difference between the sin of anxiety (fear and worry of being caught in your sin) and the mental health disorder of anxiety that is characterized by physical changes in the brain. Anxiety is both a mental health issue and a spiritual issue.
In principle, anxiety is a mental health disorder characterized by feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear that are strong enough to interfere with one’s daily activities. It often includes panic attacks, post-traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Sadly, anxiety disorders are on the rise which makes it critical for the Church to understand the epidemic on our hands.
Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the world, affecting millions aged 18 and older, every year. It is highly treatable, yet only 37% of those suffering receive treatment. People with an anxiety disorder are three to five times more likely to go to the doctor and six times more likely to be hospitalized for psychiatric disorders than those who do not suffer from anxiety disorders. It is developed from a complex set of risk factors, including genetics, brain chemistry, personality, and life events.
Today anxiety will creep up unexpectedly. It normally happens when we’ve put, too much, on our plate or we say too many yeses. Our body wants to say no. finally, it shuts down in ways we don’t expect. God didn’t design us to hustle 24-7. He designed us to Be Still and Know. To ‘Be still’ means to rest in God’s presence. This verse wasn’t written in the context of taking a spa day. It was written in the context of war. It means to stop; cease striving and stop fighting and acknowledge God. Daily we should learn to be still before our Lord. That means to be un-busy, not hustle and free your mind. We are to prioritize our time with Him and listen to what our bodies need. Rest, exercise, a good bedtime routine, eight hours of sleep, consume healing foods and meditate on God’s word. This is how we war against the battle of anxiety.
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7
Let’s Pray
Yahweh, when I feel crushed by my worries, lift my mind, and help me to see the truth. When fear grips me tight and I feel I cannot move, free my heart and help me to take things one step at a time. When I can’t express the turmoil inside, please calm me with Your quiet words of love. Father, I choose to trust in You, each day, each hour, each moment of my life.
God, I know deep down that I am in Your grace, forgiven, restored and by Your sacrifice, You have set me free. In Christ’s name Amen.
I could have very easily let my thoughts be on the worst possibilities and worry the day away. Instead, I slowed down to ask myself “how can I overcome my fear and anxiety?” The only biblical way I could see to handle the fear was to choose to trust God, and “bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ”. (2 Corinthians 10:5) I had to control my thoughts, rather than letting them run away and paralyze me with fear.
Jesus teaches acceptance, both of the world and oneself. Acceptance starts by understanding your anxiety further and recognizing the causes and solutions for your anxiety symptoms.
One of the reasons that people find Christianity helps them overcome anxiety is because at the core of anxiety is fear. Fear over the unknown and the belief that specific things in your life are important. Christianity teaches values that promote less anxiety, specifically because the belief in Christianity runs directly counter to the issues that cause anxiety. For example:
The bible teaches that fear of the unknown shows a lack of faith in God. Everything is supposed to be the result of God’s plan. If you’re allowing yourself to be overcome by anxiety and fear, then you’re showing that you don’t have total trust in God. The more trust you have, the more confidence you have in God’s ability to turn things around.
Christianity also teaches that death isn’t something to fear. A life lived in God’s path is designed to help you get to heaven, which is the ultimate goal of Christianity. This is seen in many Christians that adopt the religion after experiencing profound stress. Jesus gives their life purpose, which helps them overcome the belief that death is something to fear.
Today, many people also have personal fears that affect them. For example, someone may fear embarrassment, or they may fear spiders, or they may fear socializing. All these personal fears go against the belief in God, which is that your fears are selfish thoughts when God has a plan for you. Personal fears can be hard to control, but a healthy consistent belief in God can help you overcome anxiety. The core of believing in God is about trust over every uncertainty and fear in life and so this belief can be used to allow people to stop anxiety.
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” (Philippians 4:6)
Let’s Pray Yahweh, I come before You to lay my panic and anxiety at Your feet. Father, when I’m crushed by my fears and worries, remind me of Your power and Your grace. God, fill me with Your peace as I trust in You and You alone. I know I can’t beat this on my own, but I also know that I have You, Lord, and You have already paid the ultimate price to carry my burdens. For this, I thank you, in Christ’s name Amen.
When that guy cat-calls you just to get a reaction, what do you do? You ignore him and keep walking.
When that bully pushes all of your buttons just to make you mad, what do you do? you tune them out and move on.
When somebody tries to convince you of something you know 100% isn’t true, you don’t even give it a second thought before you dismiss the argument.
So why don’t we use this tactic against the father of all lies, a.k.a the enemy that is out to destroy your life? Just don’t engage. As soon as you do, he wins. He is cunning, crafty, and manipulative, and he’s only after your heart. He wants to crush it and mutate it and trample it underfoot until there’s nothing left for God to use.
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy…” John 10:10a
I know this isn’t easy. Trust me, I’m a thinker. Overthinking is my second nature, if not my first nature. I have to think through everything, especially when faced with a conflict. If somebody challenges my opinion, my first reaction is to analyze the entire argument…
What are they saying?
Do I agree or disagree? Why?
What do I think?
How does that compare to what they think?
What is true?
What evidence affirms/denies my argument?
Is there any way there is truth in both arguments?
Why do they think what they think?
Why do I think what I think?
And it goes on …
and on …
and on.
I think you get the idea. By the way, all of that overthinking happens in about 2 seconds. It’s an intense self-interrogation until I think my way into a solution that makes sense to me, so I can feel at peace with what I believe and move on.
Sometimes this is a really useful skill, but the enemy knows exactly how to use it for my deepest undoing. The problem with using the “overthinking tactic” against Satan is that he doesn’t care about logic. His goal is not to convince me that his argument makes more sense. In fact, he doesn’t even care about what he says. He doesn’t even believe the lies himself.
“You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that — and shudder.”
James 2:19
Satan knows God. He knows scripture. He knows what the truth is, and his goal is to keep you as far away from it as possible. He knows the power that God’s word can have in your life and that terrifies him. He will say whatever it takes to get you to question God and doubt His goodness, and the moment you try to reason with him, you’ve fallen into his trap.
I say all of this because I fall into the trap far too often. The devil uses people near and dear to me to convince me of his lies because he knows it works with almost 100% accuracy. Because their opinion matters so much to me, I will over-analyze their every word and body language to my own demise. Something they say – or don’t say – pricks one of my insecurities (unbeknownst to that person), and the trap has been set. Suddenly, I’m hit with an avalanche of thoughts like these:
“They just don’t care enough about you to ask about your day.”
“You’re stupid for thinking ______ would happen.”
“You’re too dramatic, emotional, etc.”
“It’s your fault that you can’t handle this feeling.”
The first step is to recognize the lie. Now, to do this, you have to know the Truth. No, that’s not a typo. I meant Truth with a capital “T” because you have to know God’s Word, and His word is Truth. Once you start to bury His word in your heart, and begin to recognize his voice, you can more easily discern truth from lies.
“These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”
Deuteronomy 6:6-7
But it doesn’t stop there! That’s where I made my mistake. I thought, “If I recognize the lie, it will become invalid and it won’t sting anymore.”
False.
Satan is more crafty than that, and he was already one step ahead of me. See, he recognized how I use my interrogation process to reconcile a contradicting thought, so he used it against me. He used it to blur the lines between lie and Truth. So he takes me down this rabbit hole to confuse me and muddle the words of God until I feel so lost, confused, and heartbroken that I can’t even remember what lie got the whole thing started to begin with. He knows how I look for the middle ground to make sense of things, but there is no middle ground between what the devil says and what God says.
So no, it CANNOT end with recognizing the lie. You have to take the next step and make the choice not to engage with the lie. Now, if you’re a thinker like me, this will be hard. Like really, really hard. But you have to choose to look the other way. Change your posture to look toward your loving, protective, jealous, Heavenly Father. Tell the enemy you don’t have time for his games. Don’t try to argue with him and tell him why his lie is a lie and why God’s Truth wins, because he already knows it, and he doesn’t care. He’ll just twist everything around until you find yourself lost in a muddy mess of nothing that makes any sense whatsoever.
“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
2 Corinthians 4:18
To sum it up…
Study Truth, that is, the Word of God.
Recognize the lie, which is not the Word of God.
Don’t Engage. Choose to meditate on and dwell in the Word of God.
“Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.”
Joshua 1:8
This is not something that my genius, overthinking brain came up with one day. This is something that the Holy Spirit whispered to me, and by God’s grace alone, I heard it. I was on the brink of yet another panic attack and fearful of going back down that dark road. I was on the brink of forming another unsuccessful argument for why the lie was a lie and trying to figure out a way to outsmart the devil this time, and the Holy Spirit simply said, “don’t engage with the lie.” Of course I tried to overthink and analyze again, but He didn’t relent. He just kept telling me, “Don’t engage with the lie. It’s not worth it. Just keep looking at Me. Lean on the love of your Father instead of your own knowledge for once.” Hey, that sounds familiar, right?
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to him and he will make your paths straight.”
Proverbs 3:5-6
So go ahead. Give the enemy the cold shoulder. Hit him with the silent treatment. Then you will taste freedom. Remember the second half of John 10:10…
“…I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
John 10:10b
Go live in the abundant life Christ bought for you. The enemy’s lies are not worth your time, precious child of God.
Yesterday I was speaking to some people who was frustrated with the panic over corona virus. They were full of complaints and fear. My advice to them, as it is to you is, “no matter what you may be facing in life, God is with you. You don’t ever have to feel anxious, worried or upset, because you have a covenant of peace with the Almighty.” That means His peace is always available to you.
Remember this, God’s peace passes all understanding. That means you can have peace when it doesn’t make sense to have peace. When the rest of the world seems to be upset or fretting, you don’t have to be upset or fret. When viruses appear, When loved ones die unexpectedly, you can be at peace, knowing that God has promised to supply all of your needs according to His riches in glory. When the bills are high and the money is low, you can trust that God is your refuge, and He will cause you to live in safety. He’ll make a way where there seems to be no way. Hallelujah!
Today, despite the panic of this corona virus and the death of hundreds of people around the world, begin to trust in God’s promises. Thank Him for His peace and faithfulness in your life. Declare that God’s peace and joy dwells and rules in your heart and mind. As you dwell on God’s promises, your heart will be at rest, and you’ll experience the blessing of His peace and not panic.
“And I will make with them a covenant of peace”¦”
(Ezekiel 34:25, KJV)
Pray With Me Yahweh, thank You for Your covenant of peace. I receive it by faith today. Father, I choose not to worry, fret or panic over this outbreak of the corona virus. God, I will keep my heart and mind fixed on the comfort of Your promises, and I declare the gift of Your peace over my heart and mind, and rebuke that spirit of panic, satanic distrust and selfishness. I lift up those around the world affected by this virus, and ask for total healing in Jesus’ Name! Please comfort those that mourn. Amen.
Listening to a conversation the other day, made me realise that many of us think that God gets surprised, or goes into panic mode when things go wrong. We may be surprised by the unexpected, because we believe just because we’re good or doing the right thing, then we are exempt from trouble. The scripture says, “the rain falls on the just and the unjust.”
When something unexpected happens, or you find yourself facing a crisis, don’t automatically go into “panic mode,” or just fall apart emotionally. Realise that the crisis is no surprise to God. It may be unexpected to you, but God knows the end from the beginning. He has solutions to problems that you haven’t even had yet. He has equipped you for every battle, and He goes before you to make your crooked places straight!
Today, don’t panic about the situation you’ve found yourself in, instead of focusing on your problem, focus on your God. Focus on the fact that He is with you. Remember that He doesn’t panic or get surprised by life’s difficulties. He walks with you, leading and guiding you to a place of peace and victory. No matter what has happened, He will take what the enemy meant for evil, and turn it around for your good. He always leads us into victory. So keep moving forward, knowing that He has already made a way of escape for you! Hallelujah!
“But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumph”¦”
(2 Corinthians 2:14, AMP)?
Pray With Me Yahweh, I come to You with an open and humble heart. Father, I thank You for the victory that You have in store for me, even when I can’t see it. Please remove panic mode from my life when unexpected trials come. I’m so glad that You don’t panic. Teach me how to stay focused on You, and not get bent out of shape by the unexpected. God, I want to trust You more, knowing that You are always faithful, in Jesus’ Name! Amen.
The traumatic aftermath of a miscarriage, even an early one, is an empirically proven, statistically significant trend.
Miscarriage and grief are both an event and subsequent process of grieving that develops in response to a miscarriage.
This event is often considered to be identical to the loss of a child and has been described as traumatic.[
Losing a pregnancy can affect a woman – and her family – for years, research finds.
Emotional responses may be bitterness, anxiety, anger, surprise, fear, and disgust and blaming others; these responses may persist for months.
By far the most common PTSD symptoms that result from miscarriage are depression and anxiety.
Mental Illness after miscarriage is common, but women aren’t getting the support they need.
A study from the Irish Journal of Psychology found that 44 percent of women who had miscarried during their first trimester showed “clinical levels of psychological distress,” even months later. That includes depression, panic attacks, flashbacks, nightmares, and anxiety.
So your friend decides to forget the “12 week rule” and tells her family and social networks she is pregnant. She knows the stats — one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage — but she wants to have the support of family and friends around her in case she needs it.
Then the worst happens: she miscarries. And she discovers many people around her, including health professionals, lack sensitivity when talking about the miscarriage. Some don’t even acknowledge her loss.
So how can we support women better? What do women need from family, friends and health professionals at the time of a miscarriage?
Studies Acknowledge How Traumatic Miscarriage Is – So Why Doesn’t Society?
Dos
Acknowledge their loss.
Listen and let them grieve.
Encourage them to talk to other women who’ve had a miscarriage.
Mental illness can be a consequence of miscarriage or early pregnancy loss and even though women can develop long-term psychiatric symptoms after a miscarriage, acknowledging the potential of mental illness is not usually considered. A mental illness can therefore develop in women who have experienced one or more miscarriages after the event or even after many years later.
“There is the initial shock of finding out your child has passed, alone in an ultrasound room because partners are not allowed in with you, then there is the trauma of the abortion pill which is essentially going into labour at home without any medical professional present, and then you are expected to live your life normally for weeks, going to work, smiling, all the while knowing your dead pregnancy is inside you and could come out at any moment. I don’t think any woman finds herself on the other side of that mentally intact.”
“The study will explore the barriers and benefits of using a screening tool. Some hospitals now have early pregnancy loss clinics to which they can refer women experiencing miscarriages. This is a very new development and we hope that use of these clinics will result in better screening and follow-up for women who may have mental health issues following their miscarriage.”
There may be a link between PTSD and miscarriage
Studies Acknowledge How Traumatic Miscarriage Is – So Why Doesn’t Society?
Engel says there are very limited long-term studies related to mental health and miscarriage and that most studies tend to have been conducted in the first year post miscarriage or even within the first six weeks.
Engel also says findings of the studies are contradictory, with some suggesting that life circumstances or social support have no bearing on the experience of either depression or anxiety. Others suggest that women who have limited social support, prior losses, longer gestation, and/or existing mental health concerns are more likely to experience greater severity in depression and/or anxiety and to experience symptoms of either up to a year.
