Humility: The forgotten antidote to anxiety
All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, ‘God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.’ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
I know in my mind that anxiety, at its root, is a form of unbelief. God commands us not to worry. But I never gave much thought to the seed from where anxiety sprouted until God placed me in humbling circumstances where I lost some sense of control over my plans, wrestle with disappointment, and experienced the bodily manifestations of anxiety — sleeplessness, to name the least of them. In God’s sovereign grace, He revealed through His word and these circumstances my heart’s real issue — pride, the seed from which anxiety grows.
Why being anxious is a form of pride
By default, we often attribute the meaning of the word “pride” to its most obvious forms, arrogance, and self-centeredness. Rarely do we attribute “pride” to its subtle, and “respectable” form — anxiety.
When we are anxious about the future, about life and all its troubles, it reveals the underlying distrust on the true and unfathomable source of security and peace — God Almighty. It is fundamentally the pride of choosing to believe and focus on what we trust to be true and secure, may it be our strength, wisdom, or feelings. It is trusting everything else but God. It is wanting to have our way.
While arrogance and self-centeredness are forms of rejecting God and putting self at the center in a boasting manner, anxiety rejects God by not trusting who He says He is and what He says he can and will do. All these are marks of a proud heart. A proud heart, in essence, is self-sufficiency and sets us in opposition against God and keeps us from experiencing His grace (1 Peter 5:5). It is saying, “I am in control. I run and fix my own life. God cannot call the shots for my circumstances.”
Antidote: Humbling ourselves— casting our anxieties on Him
Trusting God to be all that He says He is and to do all that He says He can and will do, is the spring from which humility flows. He calls us to humble ourselves by casting our anxieties on him because he cares. Jesus is aware that we will have cares and troubles on this side of eternity that will cause us to feel anxious. The good news is, we can cast all of them on Him. Whenever we get anxious we should move away from being proud, wanting to be in control and having our way, to a place of humility — resting in God’s sovereign love. We can unburden ourselves from the anxious toil of forcing our selfish will by embracing humility, coming to Jesus and finding rest for our souls (Matthew 11:28–30).
We can trust that he cares. Jesus cares. He cares enough to promise that He will cause everything to work for the good of those who trust and love Him (Romans 8:28). Jesus cares so much that, in humility, He trusted the Father and willingly died for us (Philippians 2:8) even while we are in downright opposition to him (Romans 5:8). We can entrust our future to Him because He is our security. We can trust Him to be our satisfaction because in Him there is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11). In Him, we find everything that our heart desires and more, nothing in this world could ever give. (Psalm 73:25–26)
Knowing and Enjoying Jesus
We are free, full, and complete in Jesus. All else may fade and fail but He will remain. We can be humble, hopeful, and rested in Christ because He cares for us.
It is in denying ourselves (Luke 9:23) through humility that we experience God’s grace to truly know and fully enjoy Jesus — our Lord, Savior, and Treasure.
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Valleen Bacarisa
6/30/2021
Disclaimer:
This devotion or reflection essay is not written to downplay the term “anxiety” as it relates to psychological or mental health issues caused by trauma and medical malaise which are outside the author’s expertise. While the author acknowledges that people are both spiritual and physical beings, this article is centered around the spiritual aspect of the word “anxiety” with the aim of pointing people to the root cause.