Worry, stress and anxiety are the diagnoses of the day in American culture, even among Christians. Is there a cure?
Beloved pastor and author Max Lucado sees, via his giftedness in plumbing the depths of Scripture, if not a cure, at least a healing balm. And it’s hiding right in plain sight, right among Paul’s oft-quoted directive to “be anxious for nothing” (Philippians 4:6).
“For nothing?” we ask. Sometimes things get so unbearable this bit of well-meaning encouragement can feel like a slap to the face, similar to that other favorite, “in everything give thanks” (everything?). So we sat down with Max to discuss what he found that brought him to write on the frustrating, confusing, pressing issue of anxiety, borrowing his title straight from Paul: Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World.
Crosswalk: Max, if we Christians believe and know that Jesus is our Prince of Peace, and that he brings us a “peace that passes understanding,” why are we so prone to anxiety?
Max Lucado: Well, part of it is just this anxiety-driven world in which we live. It’s literally a place of chaos.
We cannot underestimate how unique this generation is in comparison with others. As people list the reasons anxiety is off the charts, psychologists and researchers always point to the fact that our world has changed more in the last 30 years than in the last 300 combined. It’s a faster world; nobody has ever been able to go as fast as you and I can in our cars, in our planes, and also in our communication. There’s hardly a place we can go where we’re not getting news, and oftentimes that news is not good news. And then most of all, it’s just a secular society in which we live in the United States. And secularism sucks the peace out of people because we don’t have a way of coping with the fears that come.
So there are many reasons that even Christians feel this anxiety. It’s a society that is really being infiltrated by thoughts of anxiety.
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