⁶ Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; ⁷ and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7 [NKJV]

And just like that, I had experienced yet another episode of my own anxiety-induced panic attack. It wasn’t pleasant, and frankly, I was really disappointed with myself and how I handled the whole episode yesterday. But to be fair, when I do experience an anxiety-induced panic attack, it can be quite extreme at times (last night was not the worst that I had experienced, but it is bad enough in my book). But over the years, I have also learned that I am not the only one who struggles with anxiety-related disorders. There are many people in the world who also experiences anxiety-related disorders in many different forms and to varying degrees. The only advantage that I have perhaps over others is that I have had years of professional help and counseling, so that has helped me to develop a set of coping mechanisms, so that way, I can still function somewhat better on a normal daily basis. Put it simply, unless the anxiety-induced panic attack is very severe on the scale of 1 to 10, I will usually still be able to function to some degree.

It is through my own journey of struggling with my own anxiety disorders that I had learned that nobody in life is really immune from experiencing anxiety. In fact, chances are, we have all experience some form/degree of anxiety at some points in our lives. For some of us, the kind of anxiety might actually be for a moment, or for a period in our lives, and eventually, it would goes away. For others (like me), it is more of a life-long struggle, and then things are more challenging that way. But regardless of which group you belong to, today I hope to talk about finding inner peace and accepting help from others. I think I need today’s message just as much as you do. So this is for us.

Accepting What We can Control and What We Cannot.

The very first step of dealing with anxiety, or even our worries, is to first acknowledge the things in our lives that we can control versus what is actually beyond our control. This for me usually involves an activity when I would sit down for 10 minutes during the day and I would just make a list of everything I can control in one column, and then a list of what I can’t control in the second column. Once I have done that, I would then focus in on the ones that I can actually do something about. This activity is also one of my coping mechanisms. And yes, it has been really helpful in all my years of dealing with my anxiety disorders.

Turning Our Anxieties/Worries into Prayers

From a spiritual perspective, I find that whenever my anxiety starts to get a little overwhelming and distracting, that is when I would have to start praying to God and asking for His help and grace. I know that I won’t be able to handle it when it gets too overwhelming. I also know that I cannot allow the anxiety to keep compounding during the day, or week. When things keep snowballing, it will eventually lead to an anxiety-induced panic attack. A little like what I had just experienced last night. Like I said, it wasn’t the worst one that I had experienced in my life. But it is still a bad one in my book. So I know that for some reasons, I might have allowed the issue to snowball a little. And it happened likely because I had tried to pretend that things are going to be fine, and that things will be okay, so I didn’t really do enough to mitigate the situation that led to my anxiety-induced panic attack yesterday.

Does it mean that every time I start praying to God, and the anxiety would just magically disappear? Actually no. It’s not like a magical pill unfortunately. But it does give me the opportunity to unburden myself, my worries and anxieties and surrendering them to God’s hands. But sometimes (depending on how bad the anxiety-levels are), I might have to resort to praying a number of times throughout the day in order to find the strength and grace to focus on what I can control. And when I finally get to the end of the day and I would reflect on my day and realized that by God’s grace and strength, what might’ve been a really debilitating and unproductive day had turned out pretty okay because I was able to get something done in spite of my anxieties.

Humility, Surrendering & Accepting Help

⁵ Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” ⁶ Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, ⁷ casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.

1 Peter 5:5-7 [NKJV]

For today’s daily bread reflections, I have found 1 Peter 5:5-7 to be really meaningful and impactful. When it comes to dealing with my own anxiety disorders, I have learned a few different key lessons over the years. And it is also these different lessons that will help us to better manage/deal with our anxieties/worries.

Humility

The very first lesson that I had to learn was to be humble. In a world where mental health stigma is still alive and well, I understand how it can make it very frightening to open up and admit that we need help. In a world/culture where reaching out and asking others for help is often viewed as weak makes it even harder to speak up about our own struggles. So I understand what it is like to want to just suffer in silence and to keep to ourselves. But I also understand after years of personal struggles that it is not healthy and we should never have to suffer in silence. And for some people, it is also their own pride and ego that might hold them back from wanting to admit that they need help. I’ve been there a few times in my life, so I know what it is like. It is that mindset of thinking that we can handle it and that we can manage it, only to realize later that we actually don’t have it all under control. And by the time that the situation explodes in our faces (or when we experience mental breakdown), that is usually already a little late. What we should really have done is to be humble, and reach out to people and to admit that we need help dealing with our struggles. The earlier we can recognize the signs and nib the issue in the bud, the less likely for the situation to keep snowballing into something that is too big for us to handle.

Surrendering Everything to God

When speaking from a spiritual perspective, it really is a process when it comes to surrendering everything in our lives to God. It is very common human nature for us to want to retain some sense of self-control over our circumstances. But there will be circumstances in our lives when we have to learn to acknowledge that we cannot manage everything on our own. That is also when we must begin to surrender everything that we are facing and struggling with into God’s hands.

Speaking from my own experience, I know that while I am able to at times surrender my circumstances and challenges to God, I sometimes also struggle and would subconsciously hold back. The bible reminds us today that when we are holding back from God, it is usually a sign that we haven’t trusted Him fully. And there are also times when we hold back from surrendering our worries/anxiety to God because we think that the problem was a result of our own sin and foolishness, so we think to ourselves that it is our responsibility and so we have to figure it out on our own. Find a way to solve it on our own. But that again is pride. And not humility.

So we have to learn to once again lay down our pride, admit to God that we had messed up, and that now we have this huge problem that we are facing and it’s just too overwhelming to overcome. And yes, we will need Him to help us. But ofcourse, this doesn’t mean that we should always allow ourselves to mess up and repeat the same mistakes and then hope that God will just take care of it. We still have a responsibility to be repentant and to learn from our mistakes and making sure that we never repeat them again. Never ever take God’s grace for granted.

Asking for Help from Others & Accepting Help from Them

This very last part of our reflection and lesson for today is something that I have been learning in recent weeks of my life. Once we have learned how to humble ourselves, lay down our pride, ego and also surrender the challenges/problems into His hands, the next step is to also learning how to reach out to ask people for help. As someone that has been brought up in a culture where we have been taught to be independent and self-sufficient, this last part has been the most difficult and challenging for me. To learn to reach out and ask others for help, and also to accept their help required a lot of deprogramming on my part.

It is so important for us to remember that there is nothing wrong with seeking help and receiving it from others. We all encounter dark periods in our lives from time-to-time, and when we are in those moments of our lives, we must never be afraid to accept help from others. I remember the classic story about a guy being on the roof of his house when there is a flood. And every time God send someone to save him, he would reject the help and kept saying that he believed God would save him. And when he finally drowns and goes to heaven, he would complain to God, “Why didn’t you save me Lord? I cried out to you all three times.” And then God would reply to that man, “I sent you help 3 times but you rejected my help all 3 times.”

That to me is the moral of the story for what I have been going through and am currently experiencing. I am like that guy on the roof in the middle of a massive storm/flood. And it is in this moment that I am learning to accept help (call for help) from others. I recognize that this might be God’s way of sending me help (through the kindness and compassion of others).

Personal Prayer for Today

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank You for speaking to me today through Your word. Thank You for Your mighty grace and mercy as I deal with my daily battles with my anxiety-related disorders. I know that there are always better days, and then there would be worse days like yesterday. I know that I haven’t handled my anxiety-induced panic attack very well, and I know that I should’ve relied upon You and asked for help sooner.

Today, I come before You fully humbled because I know that my current circumstances and the challenges that are ahead of me are really big. I won’t minimize my challenges anymore, or pretend that I can handle some of it on my own. I know that is my own pride getting in the way of seeking/receiving help from You. So today, I will lay down my pride (or whatever amount of pride that I might still be holding on to).

Thank You Lord for reminding me about the story of the man on the roof in the middle of a storm. You sent help, but because of the man’s own pride and ego, he would reject and turn down help from others when it was in fact You sending help. When I look at my current circumstances and the kind of compassion and kindness I had experienced from others, I am learning to recognize that this could be Your way of sending help to me in the middle of the greatest storm of my life.

With great humility, I will continue to ask for help from others, and I will also continue to appreciate and accept the help from others because I know that I won’t be able to full overcome everything on my own.

I thank You Father God. I vow to give You all of the praise, and all of the glory. In Jesus’ name I give thanks. Please continue to watch over me and help me.

Amen.