Getting Through the Season of Anxiety

A young man fresh out of college applies for an accounting job. The boss says "I worry about a lot of things," But I don’t want to have to worry about money. Your job will be to handle all my money worries."

The young man says "I see. And how much does the job pay?"

The boss says "I’ll start you at eighty thousand."

The young man says "Wow! Eighty thousand dollars! That’s great! But I’m curious. How can such a small business afford to pay me $80,000?"

The boss says "That is your first worry!"

A lot of people are worried about money right now. Someone says “I gotta pay my taxes in two months, and right now, I don’t have the money. What am I going to do? I’m worried.”

Someone else says “My daughter is away at college. The spring semester has already begun. And I don’t have enough money to get her through the month of March. She’s going to have to work 30 hours a week just to pay for her room and board. What am I going to do? I’m worried.”

Proverbs 12:25 says that “An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up.” What happens when you pick up something that’s really heavy? It weighs you down. You feel like you’re about to be crushed. Last year, Jeanne and I were at Fleet Farm. She picked up these two 40 pound bags of water softener pellets. And I felt guilty because I’m supposed to be the big strong man. And I’m letting Jeanne do all the work. So I said “Let me take those.” As soon as she gave them to me, my hands went CLUNK! Right to the ground! Those bags were a little heavier than I thought! Jeanne said “I’ll take them back. I said (with a strained voice) “NO, I CAN DO IT!” But with those 40 pound bags weighing me down, it was a little more difficult for me to move forward.

That’s what anxiety does to us. It weighs us down so that it’s more difficult to move forward with our lives.

And so today, we need a kind word to cheer us up. Today, I want to briefly mention a few things that people might be worried about. And then we’ll look at Philippians 4 to find out how we should handle the worries of this life.

One thing that people might be worried about right now is the future. “My company just laid off a hundred people. And now I’m worried I might be next! What’s going to happen to me if I lose my job? What will the future hold?”

There’s a lot of stuff about the future that we don’t know. That’s why I like Jeremiah 29:11. It says “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.” In other words, “I don’t know everything that’s going to happen in the future. But I know that it’s going to be a prosperous future! So instead of worrying about the stuff that I don’t know, I’m going to love and cherish and worship the One who does know!”

Another thing that you might be worried about right now are your grades. You say “Last month’s report card didn’t go so well. And now I have one report and two tests coming up this week. The English test is the one I’m worried about the most. I’m afraid that when I take my tests, I’m going to blank out and forget everything I studied. What am I going to do?”

I failed Chemistry when I was a senior in high school. And once in a great while, I still dream that my old high school is going to call me up and say “Marc, our records show that you didn’t pass Chemistry. You’re going