Battling Unbelief: Anxiety

I traveled to Jamaica this past July, a trip which involved flying in a plane. Anyone who knows me well knows that I hate flying for a number of reasons. Needless to say, I experience a lot of anxiety leading up to the flight and, especially, on the flight itself. After the emotions of the flight wear off, I usually laugh at this anxiety, but John Piper’s Battling Unbelief has exposed it for what it really is: the sin of unbelief.

Piper says, “the root cause of anxiety is a failure to trust all that God has promised to be for us in Jesus…When anxiety strikes and blurs our vision of God’s glory and the greatness of the future that he plans for us, this does not mean that we are faithless, or that we will not make it to heaven. It means our faith is being attacked” (25, 27).

His solution? “We fight anxieties by fighting against unbelief and fighting for faith in future grace” (28). Included in this is accepting the seven promises of Matthew 6:25-34:

1. God has given us life and will raise us in life (Matt. 6:25)

2. God takes care of insignificant animals, he will care for us (Matt. 6:26)

3. Anxiety will not do any good (Matt. 6:27-2

4. God will care for his children more than the rest of creation (Matt. 6:28-30)

5. God is not ignorant of our needs (Matt. 6:31-32)

6. God will provide that which we truly need in this life (Matt. 6:33)

7. God will not give us more trouble in one day than we can bear (Matt. 6:34). Piper links this passage (”do not worry about tomorrow”) with the promise of Lamentations 3:22-23 (”the Lord’s loyal kindness never ceases, his compassions never end, they are new every morning“). In other words, God will give us the grace to handle today’s difficulties today, and tomorrow’s difficulties tomorrow.

When we are anxious, we not only battle our anxiety with a general understanding of God, but with specific promises from God’s Word. For me, my anxiety results in not truly believing in Christ’s victory over death. I need to learn to believe the promise of Christ’s victory (1 Corinthians 15:56-57) and that when I die I will die to the Lord (Romans 14:7-9).

We’ll see how it goes on my next flight.