Anticdote For Anxiety

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Sit back, enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Encouraging Prayer. God offers an open invitation for his people to talk with him at any time about anything. On Encouraging Prayer, Dr. James Banks, author of the bestselling Prayers for Prodigals and many other books on prayer provides weekly biblical insight to help you learn to love to pray. And now here's James. But today on Encouraging Prayer, we're going to talk about an antidote for anxiety that's really tucked away in Scripture almost right in the middle of the Bible, right, James? That's right. I think the middle of the Bible is Psalm 118, which I believe is right before the longest chapter of the Bible, Psalm 119, which I should tell our listeners Robbie has been memorizing.

And I think that's amazing. And the shortest, by the way, is Psalm 117, which is just two verses. But actually, where we're going is a little after all this in Psalm 131. It starts with these words. My heart is not proud, Lord. My eyes are not haughty.

I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. Yeah, David wrote that, didn't he? Yes, he did. And we don't know for sure when he wrote it, but scholars tend to land on two possible times when Saul was hunting him to take his life and he was wrongfully accused of wanting to overthrow the king, you know, and being full of himself. Or when he brought the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem and he was dancing before the Lord, and then he was criticized by his wife, Saul's daughter Michal, for doing it. Basically, she said it made him look like a commoner.

So it was one or the other of those times, perhaps, but we don't know for sure. So this also starts out a prayer, right? He's talking to God and tells him, you know, that his heart's not too proud. And that's a wow, if you think about it, to be able to say that to God. It sounds just a little pride coming out, you know, like, what? I know, I know. I mean, as soon as I pray that, I can almost hear the Holy Spirit saying, Oh, really?

And then you get convicted because all of a sudden there you see it, you know, but think about this. I mean, when you realize that this is coming from someone as great as David, I think it shows you part of his greatness really was humility because he isn't filled with himself. Yeah, that's so true. But let's go back to where we started, the antidote for anxiety, because so many people struggle with that.

They really do. And second verse makes clear what David's approach was. He writes, but I have calmed and quieted myself.

I'm like a weaned child with this mother, like a weaned child. I am content. So remember, again, this is a prayer. David is talking to God. And when he says that, you know, when he says he doesn't concern himself with things too wonderful for him, that's really a reference to God. It's the same word, wonderful, that's used elsewhere in the Bible to speak of God's wonders. So what he's really doing is saying, God, you are enough for me.

You are more than enough. Yeah, that reference to a weaned child is interesting. You think of a mom, you know, with a breastfeeding baby, and when he starts to get older, he's always hungry, looking at, you know, never at rest. So it's really a picture of the human heart, isn't it? It is. It is. What David is basically saying is, God, I don't want you for what you can do for me.

I want to love you for you. And that's really a place of spiritual maturity. All he wants is a relationship with God for God. And what's telling here is that because the human heart is so restless, he also has to calm himself. I mean, we are so easily distracted. So we have to stop and calm and quiet ourselves and just be with God and love him and be content in him. That's why the last verse, and there are just three in the Psalm, says, put your hope in God forever. Yeah, this really comes down to what we're living for each day.

Yeah, it does. And who's in charge. And that's where the antidote for anxiety comes in. If we're in charge, there's no rest, no break. You know, everything's up to you.

It's all on you. Oh, that's so true. David is keeping his heart on God. Like Isaiah prayed, you'll keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast because they are stayed on you. I mean, this is the one thing that matters more than anything else, because if everything is going wrong in the world, but you still have God, even if your life ends.