Many have coined the term Age of Anxiety for our present society. According to a recent Gallup poll of over 2.5 million surveyed America is feeling

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Shanna Tucker
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1 1 Many have coined the term Age of Anxiety for our present society. According to a recent Gallup poll of over 2.5 million surveyed America is feeling more anxious, depressed and dissatisfied than we did 10 years ago saw the sharpest drop in our subjective well being since In a USA Today article Millennials according to the American Psychological Association are suffering from a perfectionism syndrome that leads to an increase in anxiety, clinical depression, anorexia and other health issues. Mom s are not immune to a rise in anxiety as well. One pediatrician, Dr. Harvey Karp has observed an increase of anxiety among mom s who feel overwhelmed, alone/isolated and unsure about parenting in today s society. Teenagers and new college students have registered an increase of anxiety in the last 10 years due to feeling overwhelmed. The American College Health Association found that 62% of undergraduates report "overwhelming anxiety". Anxiety amongst teenagers has now surpassed depression as the leading reason why students seek out a school counselor. Let s discover God s way to peace today. Colossians 1: For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, 20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. God has made peace for us, it is available. For things we see and things we don t see. Peace flows out of successful reconciliation. Reconciliation came through sacrifice and the end result was peace. Peace for things on the earth and things in heaven. Heavenly peace and earthly peace. We can have both. The activity of reconciliation is the removing of barriers and restoring unity and intimacy. If we lack peace it is a reconciliation issue. It is identifying barriers to peace and creating breakthrough for peace. A barrier is something that is hiding something you need to get to on the other side. Peace is about breaking barriers. 1

2 2 Barriers many times can be ideas and attitudes you have settled on which hinders you from peace. You may not even realize that your mindset is a barrier to peace. Our peace comes through reconciliation to God s remedy, Jesus and His wisdom concerning life s events. A mistaken belief can rob you of peace and we need to be reconciled to an attitude that is true and Godly. For instance a person may think people won t like me if they really knew me, so your anxious and guarded. They need to be reconciled to the idea everybody has an unflattering side and actually being transparent is an attractive trait to others. This attitude will lead to peace. A person with a victim mentality who views life and people are so unfair and becomes anxious and they need to be reconciled to a mindset associated with an overcoming victorious mentality which produces peace. A person with shame and believes they don t deserve to be successful needs to be reconciled to the attitude that God considers you worthy of His love and His blessings. A person who believes they can t change and are stuck and is anxious needs to be reconciled to the mindset everyone can change and that is what the Gospel is all about A helpful gift is to recognize an absence of peace, which becomes a signal to you from God that your settling for something less than he has for you. Also to recognize he has made a way, He has made peace through joining you to Him and His ways. Analyze the anxiety and see the faulty attitudes that give credence or fuel to the stress or lack of peace. Then replace them and get grounded in them and stay steadfast and not moved away. I want to share with two interrelated barriers God wants you to breakthrough as you are reconciled to a lifestyle, attitude and a mindset that produces peace. How can we apply the gospel to our anxiety? 1. Know your limits. The bible does say we are jars of clay. This was before the techniques that made pottery as strong as metal. Pottery was fragile 2000 years ago. 2

3 3 Peace comes when we own what is ours while not owning what is not ours. It is the difference between being burdened, which produces anxiety or carrying your load, which produces peace, as we read in Galatians. Some of us have a Messiah complex but without the Messiah s capabilities. And we wonder why you are so stressed. Or we simply operate from our own imagined and expanded responsibilities way beyond the territory God has given us. This is why Romans says not to consider yourself more highly than you ought. It s an ambition that overextends your capacities. It is one thing to have large scale concerns, but another thing to take responsibility for all the results of those large scale concerns. Remember the devil says be more than you can be, God says be all you can be. Who are you listening to? Psalm 131:1-2 O Lord, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty; Nor do I involve myself in great matters, Or in things too difficult for me. 2 Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; The Psalmist knows he has limits and moderates the scope of what he involves himself in, or seeks to control, which leads to contentment. Anxiety comes from seeking to control ultimately what we can t. But we try, which connects our emotions to scenarios we can t control which leaves our emotions out on a shaky limb with no grounding. Another form of this is to accumulate activity to cover for a lack of peace. Have you heard the term hurry sickness? Over 50 years ago an upholsterer from San Francisco made a curious discovery. He was called to a cardiologist's office to reupholster some chairs in the waiting room. When he looked at the furniture, he wondered immediately what was wrong with the patients. Only the front edge of the seats and the first few inches of the armrests were worn out. "People don't wear out chairs this way," he said. Several years later cardiologists began to put the pieces together. They had noticed an odd pattern shared by many of their patients, a pattern that centered on a "chronic sense of time urgency." Patients showed irritability at being 3

4 4 made to wait in line, had difficulty relaxing, and were anxious over delays. Obsessed with not wasting a moment, they spoke quickly, interrupted often, hurried those around them, and were forever rushing. Hence the waiting room chairs: the patients sat on the edge of their seats, nervously fidgeting at the arms of the chairs as they watched time tick by. The cardiologists called the new disease "hurry sickness." Hurry sickness "arises from an insatiable desire to accomplish too much or take part in too many events in the amount of time available." The hurry-sick person is unable to acknowledge that he can do only a finite number of things. " Here is a verse that has helped me experience peace. Deuteronomy 19:14 Do not move your neighbor's boundary stone set up by your predecessors in the inheritance you receive in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess. God designed the layout of Israel with territories and responsibilities and you were to honor these designations. Twelve tribes shared the land, and each had portions and you were not to overextend your territory, but stay within what God has given you. Be the best in your place, while not trying to operate in a place your not designed. Learn from God what your boundaries are. The term mind your own business is not in the bible. However I feel God telling me to mind my own business as a way to stay within the territory He has anointed me and empowered me for. In January of 1999, In a 13-day span, the Cape Fear, the Adriatic, and the Beth Dee Bob were lost at sea off the coast of New Jersey. In all, 10 men died, five never to be found. three ships lost in such a short period of time is extraordinarily rare, particularly when all three were from the same docks. 1. None involved a hull breach. 2. All three were piloted by veteran captains with 10 years or more in the wheelhouse. 3. All three ships were near the end of their journey, less than 15 miles from home. 4

5 5 So what happened? Two of the three ships were carrying too much weight, and one was carrying its weight improperly. These boats were clam boats. A commercial clam trap is 3' x 3' x 4' and weighs 300 pounds empty. Laden with clamss, they weigh in at between 1 and 1.5 tons apiece! Two of the boats had 10 extra traps on board. That's tons of excess weight! Anxiety and stress can be due to an excess of weight in your boat. We have over packed our life and exceeded what is appropriate for how God has designed us. The world causes us to focus on more things we need in order to have peace, Jesus shows us how much less we need in order to have peace. I have learned we can live big lives with a small focus or a simple focus. A focus that puts the appropriate amount of responsibility upon the Holy Spirit and an appropriate amount of personal responsibility. There can be many reasons those ratio s get out of proportion. I seek to make my world smaller in regards to what I am responsible for. What ever is in your circle of responsibility determines your potential for peace. I want God to define this and not me. 2. Release burdens. The major producer of anxiety and burdens is sin. We need a proper approach to sin otherwise we can be entangled in the peace stealing consequences of it. We may lack peace because we are harboring the weight of sin in our boat. It is all about our approach. One approach will create a barrier while another approach can result in a breakthrough. The fastest way to peace is forgiveness of sin. The fastest way to a lack of peace is to manage your sin. Which actually is a misnomer. It can t be managed. So God helps us to decrease sin in our lives and increase of His Holiness. David shows our limited ability to accommodate the effects of sin. This was a season where he willfully sinned and when there was no repentance or reconciliation. 5

6 6 Psalm 38:3-4 There is no health in my bones because of my sin. 4 For my iniquities are gone over my head; As a heavy burden they weigh too much for me. Sin means to miss the mark. Sin is to work contrary to the design and desire of God for our lives. The lack of peace in our world, and in individuals is due to a faulty approach to our own sin and falleness. Here are some common approaches. #1 We deny it or redefine it. Sin loves this.. #2 We underestimate it and become casual to it. Sin loves this. #3 We wallow in it and give it too much power. Sin loves this. #4 We hide it. Sin loves this. #5 We confess it, turn from it and are forgiven and find peace. Sin hates this. If we are covering up sin, accommodating sin, managing the effects of sin, or seeking to redefine it as something other than sin it won t work and we will miss out on true peace. God cannot grant peace to the world if we sin against one another. It is hard for God to reward behavior that undermines love and respect of others and even yourself. You can t sin against your boss, or your spouse or your neighbor without remorse and expect supernatural peace. This is what David experienced when he sinned against Uriah and committed adultery with Bathsheba, his wife. Not conducive to peace. Sexual sin, not sex, creates a lot of anxiety, not because sex is bad but because it is so powerful and it s misuse creates anxiety. This was David s experience. The word immorality is used over 25 times in the NT alone. Which God says is not His will for us. We become one with what we are intimate with. There is nothing casual about sex and God wants to reconcile us to His plan for intimacy. James 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. 6

7 7 Confession can actually be in the form of saying you re sorry. That in itself is a confession to another person. Tim Johnson 7

3. Write out a verse from this Psalm that you would like to remember. Have a few share what verse they chose and why they want to remember it

3. Write out a verse from this Psalm that you would like to remember. Have a few share what verse they chose and why they want to remember it Leader Notes Lesson 11 Lord, Have Mercy! Psalm 51 PLEASE DON'T READ THESE NOTES UNTIL YOU HAVE COMPLETED YOUR LESSON. YOU WILL ROB YOURSELF OF THE JOY OF DISCOVERY! To the facilitator: YOU PROBABLY WON'T