Women's Conference on Overcoming Fear and Anxiety

Psalm 94:19

When my anxious thoughts multiply within me,
Your consolations delight my soul.

Recently, Julie Nevils, Leah and I attended a local Women's Conference on "Overcoming Fear and Anxiety" given by Pastor Jim Savastio at Emmanuel Baptist Church. The conference, recommended by the Beisners, was divided into three sessions, as follows:

I. The Reality and Danger of Fear and Anxiety in our Life – some sins are so understandable and so common that we do not fight them as we ought.

II. Why We Must Battle

III. How to Overcome Fear and Anxiety

The following summaries of the sessions were drawn from my notes:

If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? (Psalm 11:3)

When a child of God deals with elements of evil, sometimes they are confident that God does not see. God’s servant in Psalm 11 was becoming theologically confused because he was seeing what looked like a contradiction between God’s promises and His revealed character. Asaph in Psalm 73 deals with the same thing. The psalmist thinks maybe the perspective of the ungodly is correct and his own view is wrong. The godly people struggle and the ungodly don’t – “I have cleansed my heart in vain…” This wrong thinking builds on itself.

When my anxious thoughts multiply within me...(Psalm 94:19)

When the cares of your heart are many, your heart and mind canrun from one horrible situation to another and all ways out are blocked. Anxiety has powerful, depressing imaginings. You experience real emotions in response to imaginary scenarios. “My anxious thoughts multiply within me” means that you take a real situation, draw troubling conclusions that overwhelm the heart.

Jesus addresses this subject of fear and anxiety. There are over 500 references to being in a state of fear, 200 to trouble. The point to remember is: troublesome, worrisome providences -- that is, actual problems -- are the common lot of the child of God. Your “worries” are probably based on reality.

But the danger of the Christian who carries around his bundle of “worries” is found in Psalm 55:

Give ear to my prayer, O God,
And do not hide Yourself from my supplication.
2 Attend to me, and hear me;
I am restless in my complaint, and moan noisily,
3 Because of the voice of the enemy,
Because of the oppression of the wicked;
For they bring down trouble upon me,
And in wrath they hate me.

4 My heart is severely pained within me,
And the terrors of death have fallen upon me.
5 Fearfulness and trembling have come upon me,
And horror has overwhelmed me.

These things allowed to go unconquered can have the effect spoken of in Psalm 55.

Mark 4 deals with the parable of the sower and the seed. The seed that fell on the thorny ground is choked out by weeds. "They are the ones who hear the word, 19 and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful." (Mark 4:18-19)

The danger is not just that you will be agitated, but that your cares will choke out the Word so you become unfruitful. You will have no time to think about eternity because you are so busy trying to handle this life.You stop caring about being righteous, pleasing God, having a heavenly perspective as you pursue this course of anxious living.

How else is the word of God choked? Cares choke out the enjoyment of the promises of God. There are times when our anxieties choke these truths so we do not bear the sweet, helpful fruit God intends.

Some people hear God’s promises and become bitter. Again, this is how cares choke out the Word. An anxious, bitter woman hears God’s promises and only sighs. Proverbs 12:25 says, "Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, but a good word makes it glad." An anxious thought should be met by three or four truths from God’s Word that bring comfort.

In Luke 21:34, Jesus speaks of the coming judgment: “But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly." Wake up to the reality that there are things that weigh the heart down and take our eyes off of the great, Final Day to which we should be looking eagerly and expectantly. The cares of this life cause you to be spiritually dull, you miss the anticipation of that Coming Day because the cares of this world preoccupy you.

Agitations, anxieties and fear are rooted in the thought that Jesus doesn't care. This is what Martha says to Jesus in Luke 11. When Mary is not doing what Martha thinks she should, Martha asks the Lord, “Do you not care…” (The disciples says this too when Jesus is asleep in the boat during the storm.) But Jesus tells Martha that only one thing is necessary -- and Mary is doing it. Martha had Jesus in her home and could not benefit from it. Sit with hope at the feet of Jesus, feast on his Word, cast your cares on Him. You can have both a host of earthly woes and heavenly delight.