The Playbook for Chronic Anxiety

It's generated by assumptions, expectations, false beliefs, and false needs. So, if we can uncover false needs, we can learn to die to them and relax into God's sovereignty. This is a compelling way to grow in our relationship with faith. We can use our anxiety triggers to open our souls up to God's presence.

What is an assumption you hold about yourself that's unreasonable?

If you’re a perfectionist, almost every assumption you hold about yourself is unreasonable. Think about it. When was the last time you looked at your work and said, "That was well done." Perfectionism is always chasing a carrot we can never reach. It’s a treadmill to nowhere.

Anxiety has a competing gospel. The idea out of all of the gospels is that this is the only gospel where God pays and the human benefits. In every other belief system, the human pays and the god benefits.

If you think about ancient sacrifice systems, even in the Roman Empire and the Egyptian Empire back in the days of Moses, humans paid, and the gods benefited. In the Roman Empire, Caesar Augustus's nickname was the son of god and the most profound confession of faith in Rome was Caesar is lord. And along come Luke and Paul, and they say, "Nope."

The people paid and paid, and Caesar got all the benefits. For perfectionists, this message will free you when you realize that perfectionism is a gospel that makes you pay for its benefits.

The Treadmill To Nowhere

God is not asking you to be perfect. God is asking you to be human-sized. You're expecting yourself to be perfect. You are living out of a gospel of self. Whether you’re a perfectionist or a people pleaser, you’ll realize you can never please people enough because it is forever a carrot out of reach. Or a treadmill with no end in sight.

Chronic anxiety is like a personal trainer tapeworm. If you’ve ever had a tapeworm, you usually don’t even know you have it because they are so small and feed off your energy. That’s how they grow.

That's what anxiety does. It grows by consuming you, and like perfectionism or people pleasing, it puts you on a treadmill to nowhere. As you run, it’s pushing the incline and go-faster buttons into burnout, and you're not getting anywhere.

God doesn’t want us to be anxious, especially about finances. We need only to be faithful stewards and trust Him to provide because He always does.

On Today’s Program, Rob Answers Listener Questions:

My husband recently retired from the military with over 20 years of service and received a small VA pension in his retirement. I work full time and we can live off of that so he was lucky enough to find employment in his field. We're excited that he'll be getting that income but right now, we have $47,807 left on our mortgage, which is at 2.5% interest. I recently completed my doctorate and to do that I had to take out three student loans whose interest rates vary from 5.2%, 6.6%, and 6%. I owe $45,032. So, where do we start the income he'll get from his employment?
I'm 69 years old and bought a 20-year life insurance term 20 years ago. I also had the cash surrender value option and now that the 20 years is up, I've got a check for $16,945 from the life insurance company. But when I saw what they were doing, I should have been getting $17,600. So I called them up and asked where the rest of the money was. They said that I automatically went into extended-term insurance when mine canceled out. After reading the fine print, I called them a month before this term insurance was supposed to be canceled and stopped the check so they couldn't get money out of the account anymore. I also told them to cancel this policy as of the date, and they still got the extra $514.22 for the extended term. Have you heard of that before?
Some family members are overwhelmed financially and have a lot of credit card debt. Is there a credit counseling agency that you recommend?

Resources Mentioned:

Remember, you can call in to ask your questions every workday at (800) 525-7000. Faith & Finance is also available on Moody Radio Network and American Family Radio. You can also visit FaithFi.com to connect with our online community and partner with us as we help more people live as faithful stewards of God’s resources.

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