Polygrafik

I’m thoroughly reaping the benefits of the internet at the moment. There’s nothing like reading blog entries, tweets, and ebooks of strong sane people just going insane over the life that they’re living for Christ. I actually feel extremely sane from just observing that. It’s those rare moments when it dawns upon you that there are other radical Christians alive and thinking. I’m always so ashamed for being confused or having to wrestle because it’s not a thing people are very vocal about  in this micro-culture here. I’ve been thinking a lot about change and I’ve been trying my best to rearrange my life in the best manner for Christocentric living. Don’t be confused; I’m far from a self-righteous trip (at least I don’t think; The heart is a dark thing), though more and more I find traces of self-righteousness in my thought patterns. Usually when I’m confronted with my inadequacy, it’s never new inadequacy. In most cases, when I recognize sin in myself, it’s sin that has been festering, evolving, and making different strands of cultures in my heart and head for years on end. It’s surprising when you start making family trees out of your thought processes and eventually realize where things went wrong. I’ve been picking up more and more on this lately.

About a month ago it dawned upon me that it’s not normal to be hit with a tightening pain in the chest with an increased pulse, difficulty breathing, and a paranoid-state of impatience with people a couple of times in a day. I had been dealing with that for years now and I figured it was a part of life for everyone. It wasn’t even really “dealing,” because I assumed it to be the stress that accompanied a regular day. Medically, the symptoms point to anxiety. This realization wasn’t made clear to me through a specialist or anyone in particular, but rather with a friend who was on medication for the same things. For those who go to TCNJ, it was a week later that there was a special lecture at InterVarsity regarding anxiety and medical treatment which, in some areas I felt was helpful, and in other areas it actually made me ridiculously anxious and tempted to diagnose & label myself as the “Anxiety” guy. completely unnecessary. And maybe you’ll call me an absolutely prideful fool for not seeking help, but I researched, thought, prayed first and in the midst of seeking, I’ve pretty much gone this past week without a pain. Which scares the hell out of me, because it leads me to believe that there is a living, breathing God who listens and actively changes things. When I sat down and said to myself “I’m going to write in this Word Document and then copy and paste it to WordPress maybe,” I wasn’t thinking of wasting your time with a shallow testimony of the sovereignty of God. You have a bible that explains it with much more beautiful words and much more beautiful stories. There are two things that I believe assist greatly and powerfully when one is dealing with any degree of anxiety.

1. The greatest spiritual giants this world has ever seen (and probably some of your friends) deal with it.
2. It’s there because we’re totally depraved and riddled with unbelief in the provision and providence of God.
2.5 It remains because we don’t want to admit that it’s directly caused by us and that we can hand it over to the cross.

I thought about it for five seconds and decided that I am not going to write an exposition on anything. Instead, here is a link to John Piper’s sermon: “Battling The Unbelief of Anxiety.” Some might say that something like a little change in mind or a little convincing can’t possibly change a “condition.” That this idea is unrelated. Bull. Here’s one thing I realized that made a lot of sense to me. There were only specific times that I got anxiety. I’m not humble enough to expose them all but one was when I was reading the bible. Some people say “I had to die to myself to really pick up God’s word.” Okay, I was like dying as I picked up God’s word. Reading that thing every day was so utterly painful. My throat would get so dry and I wouldn’t be able to produce saliva because I was so anxious. Why? Recognizing that the feelings I felt weren’t normal caught my attention, and understanding that everything that goes on in my head is always a spiritual issue relating back to my sinfulness made me ask questions.

“Why am i so anxious? What do I hope to get out of this scripture? What do I see in reading this? Do I really just wanna get to the end of it? When is this chapter going to be over? Do I just need to feel like I accomplished reading this for the day? Who am I fooling? What is the rush? Why would I realistically want to rush this? This is the reason that I’m alive; what do I have that’s more important to focus on? This is it.”

I get the feeling most people have felt anxious or at least easily distracted by reading the bible. It is extremely easy to get distracted, which is why I read on the 4th floor of the library without my laptop. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t have to isolate myself anymore, but when you’re sensitive to the fact that you’re a selfish person, you really realize how much you try to take the best of yourself. You rob yourself, ironically, in the pursuit of yourself. Anyway, I started this chain of questions with anything that brought that tightness in my chest, and I prayed, which, has more power than the Reformed community will really give it. On iTunes, Matt Chandler from “The Village Church Podcast” has a sermon titled “The Art of Prayer” which, yes, exegetically explains that people found in Christ have the ability to pray for things and from that prayer have God lovingly act on them.

Growth in better understanding of my fears helped expose the fact that I have tons of unbelief. There were a number of times these past 2 weeks where Pastor Yunn said “are there any prayer requests” and on the tip of my tongue stood “unbelief.” It never quite made it out because I didn’t want people to think I was drowning in doubt of the gospel or something. Even if I were, what would I be so scared for? I wouldn’t be shunned or unloved or anything…I think. Regardless, that was hardly the case. The gospel has been sorta my rock in this. Rather, in the prayers said during a battle against anxiety I’d admit to myself and God that I don’t believe that he will be there for me in the future, I don’t believe that He will provide a full life for me, I don’t believe that he’s going to help me mature into manhood. There’s a lot that I don’t believe at the moment. It has nothing to do with doubt in God’s capacity to do them as much as this is just what my actions are saying about my thoughts. Admitting my unbelief has brought me and God so much tighter, which spawns a different dynamic of prayer and conversation. I fear less than I have before, and I know that when I am anxious, I’m just overwhelming myself with thoughts and worries about my performance – nothing else. We’re not complicated people, as noble as we’d like to think we are for being so. We want glory and dignity to hold onto, and some of us freak out too much if it’s caught in the balance of things. Think about it, I’ll never have an anxiety attack for you or your name. Just mine and my name.

This is not at all what I wanted to waste my time jotting down. Whatever.