Finding Calm in the Chaos

I flipped on the news and it instantly provoked fear in me. Wars. Fighting. Sickness. Lose convicts. Death. Disease.

My heart started beating faster and I began to envision all these bad things happening to my family.

What if this or that happened.

Before I knew, I was completely fearful, worried, and struggling to catch my breath.

Anxiety is on the rise.

Rightly so with the constant bombardment of problems in this world.

It’s getting darker, friend. Evil is coming out from his hiding places whereas in the past it was hidden more.

My pastor says that in his 30 years of pastoring people, he hasn’t seen this level of evil so pervasive and being visible.

What are we to do?

In order to traverse this world, we first need to know what anxiety is.

I’m sure you have felt it before, but maybe you didn’t know what it exactly is.

The American Psychological Association defines anxiety like this:

Anxiety is an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts, and physical changes like increased blood pressure.

Anxiety is not the same as fear, but they are often used interchangeably. Anxiety is considered a future-oriented, long-acting response broadly focused on a diffuse threat, whereas fear is an appropriate, present-oriented, and short-lived response to a clearly identifiable and specific threat.