Anxiety

Context

Where we find ourselves in Psalm 56 is David having been captured by the Philistines, David’s life is in great danger, and David is facing the fear of what is to happen next. David had fled from Saul to the City of Gath where the Philistines had captured him.

David was in constant danger of many enemies

The main enemies we see addressed are the Philistines & Saul’s servants

Today, we will be focusing on how David prayed through his fears and anxieties of the enemies He was facing as he fled from Saul and was captured by the Philistines

We’re going to read 1 Samuel 21 to understand the setting and context in which David wrote Psalm 56 so we can grasp a better understanding of the exact anxieties and fears He was facing, we will walk through David’s prayer and how we can pray through our fears and anxieties we face in our own lives and experience the same hope and power that David cried out to and received from God. 1 Samuel 21:1-2 says:

David went to the town of Nob to see Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech trembled when he saw him. “Why are you alone?” he asked. “Why is no one with you?” “The king has sent me on a private matter,” David said. “He told me not to tell anyone why I am here. I have told my men where to meet me later. '

The first significant point we see of David traveling to the town of Nob to Ahemelech the priest is that David went directly to the Tabernacle in the town of Nab. This is where the Tabernacle was.

The first thing we see in these first two verses is that David, amid uncertainty and facing persecution from His enemies, immediately went to the right place when he fled from Saul

That place was the House of the LORD. The Tabernacle

The next significant point we see in David's traveling to the Tabernacle is that David was traveling alone and Ahemelech seemed to be unaware of the conflict between Saul and David and was perplexed as to why a prominent man like David was traveling alone.

This is why Ahemelech asked David, “Why are you alone?” “Why is no one with you?”

When we read David’s response, we see that he lied in His answer to Ahemelech. In verse 2, we see his response, “The king has sent me on a private matter,” David said. “He told me not to tell anyone why I am here. I have told my men where to meet me later.”

We see from this response that David was lying about why he was there and put false words into the mouth of Saul. Saul never sent him and there was no one waiting to meet him later.

While we can sympathize with David for lying to protect himself as he was facing the wrath of his enemies and fleeing, we will see later that David comes to regret His decision to try to take matters into his own hands by lying rather than placing his uncertain circumstances in God's hands and trusting that God would lead him through this time of uncertainty and fear

As we continue into verses 3-8, we see David asking for & receiving holy bread from Ahemelech in the Tabernacle. While just skimming over these passages, it just seems to be a conversation about whether or not David would receive fresh or old bread. But there is a major theme of significance in how God desires our relationship with Him to be.

When David asks for bread from the Tabernacle or wherever it can be found, we see Ahemelech’s reply “We don’t have any regular bread,” the priest replied. “But there is the holy bread..”

There is a major significance and importance to this bread. The importance and meaning of this bread are found in the name, showbread. This holy bread that Ahemelech was referring to was called showbread

Showbread means, “bread of faces” This bread was to be eaten before the “face of God”

This is why the showbread was to only be eaten in the Tabernacle or House of God as a friend or guest of the LORD, to enjoy the Lord’s hospitality.

In this culture, eating together formed a bond of friendship and community that was permanent and sacred

What’s significant to us through this sacrament of the showbread in the Tabernacle is that the showbread was to always be fresh and hot.

While David did not receive fresh showbread but instead the old showbread, we see in verse 6 why he did not receive fresh bread

Verse 6 says, 'Since there was no other food available, the priest gave him the holy bread—the Bread of the Presence that was placed before the Lord in the Tabernacle. It had just been replaced that day with fresh bread.’

David received the old showbread that had been freshly replaced that day before the Lord

This is a beautiful depiction of how God desires our relationship and fellowship to be with Him. He wants our fellowship and time with Him to be before His face, and to be fresh, to be daily

This will be something we circle back to a little later, Until then, I want you to imagine in your mind, what a daily and fresh relationship with God would look like for you

As you continue reading through the rest of this chapter in 1 Samuel 21, we see a series of events that lead up to David regretting his decision to lie about why he was at the House of the LORD in Nob and David fleeing Nob to the City of Gath where we find David writing Psalm 56.

In verse 7, we see a unique plot twist in this story. Verse 7 says, 'Now Doeg the Edomite, Saul’s chief herdsman, was there that day, having been detained before the Lord. '

While we meet a new character that you will see as you continue to read on in the story of 1 & 2 Samuel, we initially see that Doge the Edomite was at the Tabernacle in Nob most likely fulfilling a ceremonial requirement related to his employment to the king of Isreal, Saul.

While Doge was the chief herdsman who belonged to Saul, he was not an Israelite but an Edomite.

Therefore, it is hard to believe that Doge was there truly doing spiritual business with the Lord, but more so there because it was required of Him to work for the King of Israel.

For David, knowing that one of Saul’s servants was there in the Tabernacle at Tob probably instilled some fear, anxiety & panic in David’s mind and heart.

For the person from whom he was trying to flee, one of his servants was at the place in which David had fled.

Continuing through verse 8 through the rest of the chapter, we see David ask Ahimelech if he has any spears or swords on hand.

David’s reasoning to Ahimelech for asking for a spear or sword was that 'David asked Ahimelech, “Do you have a spear or sword? The king’s business was so urgent that I didn’t even have time to grab a weapon!” ' (vs 8)

While this was not the truth of the current situation David was in, this is yet another lie we see David saying and more words David is putting into Saul’s mouth to protect himself since he was fleeing Saul and the king’s business was to kill David

We can see David playing His own version of 2 lies and 1 truth. It was true that the King’s business required haste, but the reason David was there at the Tabernacle and asking for weapons was not true

This is another moment we see of David deciding to trust in his way of doing things and taking matters into His own hands, rather than placing every aspect and circumstance into God’s hands and trusting in His faithful and sovereign character

Continuing in verse 9, we see Ahimelech’s response to David in saying, “I only have the sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the valley of Elah,” the priest replied. “It is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. Take that if you want it, for there is nothing else here.” “There is nothing like it!” David replied. “Give it to me!”

If you know some of your Old Testament, you know the significance of David receiving the sword of Goliath, for this was the very sword that David used to chop off the head of Goliath back in 1 Samuel 17. David was right in saying, “There is nothing like it!”. While nothing had changed about the physical sword, the circumstances in which David was using the sword this time were different.

While David was happy to have a good weapon on him, what’s sad is that as David held the sword, he failed to remember how he came to win this sword. It was through bold trust and belief in God, having and relying on his faith in God that God would sort out the consequences of his circumstances. Knowing that God would work it all together for the good and His glory.

What we see here is David trusting in the Philistine sword more than he was willing to trust in God that He was going to fulfill God’s purpose for David in his life.

Question: What areas in your life do you tend to trust more in material things rather than trusting in the Lord?

In verses 10 through the rest of the chapter, we see the consequences of David’s lies play out and the fear and anxieties overtake him. In verse 10, David flees Nob the same day he received the sword of Goliath & fled to the city of Gath.

David had to flee because the temporal protection from His lies was no longer able to protect him

When you live a life based on temporal, momentary truths and false realities (lies), they can only sustain you for so long before you find yourself at rock bottom, looking upward for something new to rescue and save you.

Unless we turn our eyes to Jesus, who is the only one who consistently sustains us & protects us, we will just live our lives fleeing from one thing to the next.

This has been true in my life when I've struggled with fear and anxiety and tried to take matters into my own hands during those times. More on this later.

The significance of David fleeing to the city of Gath was that Gath was now among the Philistines. The Philistines ruled over the city of Gath. The Philistines were the enemies of Israel. David in a nutshell, fled from one enemy to the next. Gath was also the hometown of Goliath.

It’s easy to imagine that David was most likely incredibly discouraged to think he could find refuge in the hometown of the one of whom he had cut the head off–Goliath.

It really doesn't make sense for the man carrying the sword of Goliath to go to Goliath’s hometown

Why would David also go and try to find refuge with pagans when he was sustained by the sacred bread of god?

Why was David, the man after God’s own heart, seeking refuge with pagans instead of making his home with God and seeking refuge in the Lord?

Question: When you are faced with fears of life or anxiety, where do you go to seek refuge?

Is it:

Shopping

Friends

Pornography

Social Media

Drugs

Exercise

Sleep

Verses 11 and 12 are where we find ourselves with David writing Psalm 56. Even though 1 21 Samuel doesn't describe it in detail, the Philistines captured David when he arrived in Gath. We get this information from the title of Pslam 56 as David titled Psalm 56 the song he wrote when the Philistines seized him.

We see in verse 11 that David is identified as the ‘king of the land’ by one of Achish’s servants

In verse 12 we see David taking the words they had said about him to heart and becoming very afraid of King Achish

All of this leads up to where we find ourselves diving into Pslam 56.

Testimony

While that was a heavy, deep dive into the context in which Psalm 56 was written, we need to understand the context so we can better understand the psalm. Before we dive into the Psalm for the night and start discussing and talking through anxiety, I’m going to share some of my testimonies and struggles through anxiety in my own life and how Pslam 56 played an integral part in my working through anxiety.

I had my first panic attack right before my 18th birthday in March of 2020. This was right after the pandemic was declared for COVID-19 and everything in my life was uncertain. My plans after graduation weren’t secure, my social life had vastly decreased and while I wasn’t affected much by school because I was homeschooled, that was one of the most lonely times I had experienced in my life. When I had my first panic attack, it was on the scene of a car accident I was with one of my friends at the time. Our car was turning left into a church parking lot and as we were turning in, a motorcycle behind us decided to pass us on the left and T-boned us and he flipped onto the windshield of the car. Due to the severity of the accident, my friend and I had both thought the civilian had died because he wasn’t getting off the ground. Thankfully though, right as we got out of the car, he jumped up from the ground and ended up being okay. If there was a reenactment of Lazuras rising from the dead, this would be it lol.

Right after we got out of the car and first responders arrived, I went into a severe panic attack. I had never experienced a panic attack before so on one aspect, I was panicked and overwhelmed with anxiety from the accident, then on the other aspect, I was panicking about my panic attack. Fun right!? Panicking about a panic attack. Everyone experiences panic attacks in different ways. When I experience panic attacks, the muscles in my body seize up my hands close where no one can open them, and my body becomes numb, where all I feel are vibrations coursing throughout my body. This then leads me to feel like I'm not breathing which makes me hyperventilate, and in rare circumstances, leads me to become consciously unresponsive.

While my first panic attack wasn’t my worst it wasn’t my last, From this moment on, something new had come into my life, anxiety was a foreign word to me. If you know me at all, you know that a lot of the time, I don't like to show weaknesses, so being completely vulnerable at this moment didn’t sit well with me.

Anxiety was now a part of my life and over the years, it’s become more familiar to me. That’s both a blessing and not my favorite part of my life. There are seasons where it’s a daily struggle and something that becomes a part of my routine, then there are other seasons where it’s not a huge struggle. No matter which season I find myself in, I’m continually going to Psalm 56 when anything related to anxiety comes my way. I’m not perfect at this and what I’m not saying is that the first thing I do when I have anxiety is to pray through Psalm 56, there’s usually a couple of hours or even sometimes days before I’ll be able to get to this spot, but it’s important to have passages like Psalm 56 in our Trust Bank (more on that later) so that we can be equipped when we're on our way to school or work tomorrow to pray through the anxieties and fears we face.

Now we are going to dive into Psalm 56 and look at how we can use this Psalm to pray through anxiety and rest in the same hope and comfort that David found and that I also found through this Psalm. My hope and prayer tonight are that by seeing David’s story in 1 Samuel 21 and hearing my story, you can see that from beginning to end, God is faithful and is faithful to keep His promises and plans. Also, the same truth and powerful hope and peace that we find in this passage you can have also because no matter if you struggle with anxiety like me or not, there is hope for you and there is a way out of rock bottom darkness that anxiety ever so often traps us in.

Discussion

Hopeful Prayer: Confessing the realities of life and trusting & praising God in the same breath of prayer. (Psalms 56:1-4)

(Have someone read Psalms 56:1-4) 'Be gracious to me, God, for a man is trampling me; he fights and oppresses me all day long. My adversaries trample me all day, for many arrogantly fight against me. When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?’

What we hear in David’s prayer isn’t words of formality or a magic formula, it’s words of honesty and familiarity.

As we know, David was facing constant danger from the Philistines and Saul. We know that from the context of this Psalm, David has finally come to prayer, asking for God to rescue him because He knew God had the power to do so.

In a quote from Charles Spurgeon, he says “The open mouths of sinners when they rage against us should open our mouths in prayer.”

What David is showing us here is a model of prayer that we can integrate into our prayer lives. When we are met with moments of rage from sinners sinning against us, moments of anxiety from those who have sinned against us, or fears of the situation we are facing, our first instinct should be to run to prayer.

Not a formality prayer to pray the magic formula and it all goes away

Run to prayer that is filled with honesty & familiarity.

If David, the man after God’s own heart & Jesus in Matthew 26:39 can come before God honestly in their prayers, then we can come boldly before God with our honest and familiar prayers.

Where we can find hope in Jesus’ prayer in Matthew 26:39 is that it displays for us the beauty of how God desires our relationship and fellowship to be with Him. Bold, Honest, and Trusting. He wants our fellowship and time with Him to be before His face, and to be fresh, to be daily just like we talked about in 1 Samuel 21:6 with the bread in Tabernacle.

Both this prayer from David & Jesus model for us how can come to God in prayer, no matter our circumstances & place our circumstances in the trustworthy, loving, and omnipotent hands.

Jesus made this type of prayer possible for us through His sacrifice on the Cross. When you accept Him as Lord and Savior, Jesus, becomes your advocate and you are able to boldly approach the throne of God, Just as we are, honest, vulnerable, and raw, and present ourselves before the face of God.

Your plea of an honest heart following hard after God is music to God’s ears.

If you look just a couple of Psalms prior in Psalm 51, we see David crying out to God right after he had committed adultery with Bathsheba. 'You do not want a sacrifice, or I would give it; you are not pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. You will not despise a broken and humbled heart, God. ' Psalms 51:16-17

In verses 16-17, we see yet another example and plea of how God desires our relationship with Him to be, which is made possible by the ultimate sacrifice we have found in Jesus.

God desires you exactly as you are, He is not afraid of your anxiety, panic attacks, or the anxious thoughts that constantly run through your head that if any knew you had, you’d be afraid no one would be friends with you. God isn’t afraid that, as a matter of fact, He runs after you in those moments.

Just as we see here with David, in the midst of his fear and anxiety by being captured by the Philistines, David turned to God, even when he had originally turned away, He came back and began to pray a hopeful prayer, where he was able to acknowledge the realities of what he was facing, while also acknowledging to God that he was going to trust Him and praise Him no matter the circumstance.

If you need to hear this from someone today, hear it from me, it is 100% okay for you to acknowledge before God that afraid of the circumstances you are in, and tell Him that you are still going to trust Him. You don’t have to have it all together before you can come to God. Jesus died on the cross for that.

You don’t have to wait until you’re not afraid or anxious about something before you can trust God with it. This is the place God loves to meet you.

Question: Where do you think this Hope that David has comes from?

Honest Prayer: Fear and faith can occupy the same breath of prayer.

(Psalm 56:3-7)

(Have someone read Pslam 56:3-7) 'When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? They twist my words all day long; all their thoughts against me are evil. They stir up strife, they lurk, they watch my steps while they wait to take my life. Will they escape in spite of such sin? God, bring down the nations in wrath.’

Fear & trust can co-exist. Fear and Praise can co-exist. David, who was one of the most successful young captains in Isreal, the man after God’s own heart, did not deny the presence of fear. He wasn’t afraid to admit to God when he was afraid.

Yet what he did when he was afraid and anxious is something to be imitated by us. Despite David’s fear, he boldly proclaimed that he would trust in God. Fear and faith can occupy the same prayer.

David didn’t let his fear and anxiety fill up every space in his mind.

David boldly proclaimed that when he is afraid, he will trust in God.

David boldly proclaimed that when he is afraid, he will praise God.

David is acknowledging that God is more powerful than mere mortals, & because of his known character & faithful promises that He has revealed to us, we can trust God.

Another beautiful growth of trust that we see in this prayer is that in verse 3, David starts out by praying that, “When I am afraid, I will trust in you.” in the middle of verse 4, we see David praying, “in God I trust; I will not be afraid.”

David began by trusting God even while afraid. David showed us what the first step of praying through our fears and anxiety is, that is to pray that you will trust God even when you are afraid.

What we see next is the result of that trust in God while we are afraid of coming to fruition by being able to take the next step and not being afraid because we trust in God.

Take heart in this if you struggle with anxiety as I do, the first step in being able to work through your anxiety and not letting it consume you is not by ignoring it and acting like it is never there. Your first step is praying verse 3.

To understand verse 4, we have to understand verse 3

If the only thing you can do is recite verse 3 when you’re in moments of anxiety and panic attacks, you are wholeheartedly running after God. No one is asking you to have it all together or to be perfect. This is true in my life, and this is true for you.

Once you’re ready to start praying verse 4, start praying it. There is no timeframe in which you have to get over your anxiety.

Whether you’re able to trust God while you are afraid or are able to trust God and not be afraid, placing our trust in God is the only way we will be able to walk through what we are going to talk about next.

I’m not saying you have to have it all together and be perfect, but whether you’re in verse 3 or verse 4, put your trust in God

Verses 5-7, David begins to in detail, describe what the attacks of his enemies were like. We see that they weren’t only violent, but verbal to the evilest extent. As we dive into this, we must remember that David has already declared that his trust is in God alone. So let’s look at these verses through that lens. The lens of boldly and fully trusting in God. “They twist my words all day long; all their thoughts against me are evil. They stir up strife, they lurk, they watch my steps while they wait to take my life.” (vs 5-6)

David is being fully honest with God in his prayer, even though God already knows, that God & David, are engaging in a relationship with one another as David pours out his heart to God

The safest place for you to be fully vulnerable and emotional is in the presence of God.

David was in a constant state of being attacked with verbal and physical violence, “They twist my words all day long;” He first referred to the constant grueling of the attacks in verse 1 and now again in verse 5. We can imagine just how distorted and physically worn down David probably was.

When you dive into the meaning behind these words that David used to describe the attacks of his enemies, we clearly understand what the plot of the enemies was–to undo & destroy, whatever David, the man after God’s own heart, had spoken and had planned to do right.

David’s enemies wanted nothing more than to see him be brought down and destroyed, and they were going to use every single thing they could and twist it to where David had nothing

Go into your testimony

This is why God wants us to be honest in our prayers with Him. He is the one who sees all things and can heal and guide your hearts to be redeemed and restored. If we keep things like this from God, we are denying God the opportunity to heal us, we are surrendering to our fears and anxieties, and ultimately, we turn inward away from friends and family, which is exactly where the enemy wants us to be with our anxiety.

But we must remember, this is a hopeful prayer we are working through. David is praying these things to God in the light of abundantly and fully trusting Him! Because truly, what can mere mortals do to you?

At the end of the day, if you are in Christ, you can rest confidently in the fact that if you have nothing when you lay your head down at the end of the day, and people have brought down your character & who you are as a person, who you are in Christ will never be taken away from you because you are sealed by the Holy Spirit & the only person that can define you as a loved, saved and forgiven Daughter of God, is the one Who calls you His loved, saved and forgiven daughter. That truth will never change nor can it be taken away from you.

Come honestly to God about your situation, be fully vulnerable & honest with him, and appeal to him for His justice and trust in God abundantly and boldly.

Question: How can you be more Honest with God in your prayers?

Relational Prayer: Our raw emotions and God’s sympathetic care in the same breath of prayer. (Psalm 56:8-11)

'You yourself have recorded my wanderings. Put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? Then my enemies will retreat on the day when I call. This I know: God is for me. In God, whose word I praise, in the Lord, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mere humans do to me?’

David is completely alone at this point in his life. The only person that cares about him is God and likewise, the only person David can be honest with about his emotions is God. Verse 8 should bring us an overwhelming amount of comfort. Remember that we’ve been looking at this prayer through the lens of wholehearted trust in God. “You yourself have recorded my wanderings. Put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?”

What David is praying to God in this verse; David is acknowledging and remembering the depth of God’s sympathetic care for him.

What David means when he says this is that our tears and wanderings are not just remembered by God, but He captures them and takes pity on them with the utmost deepest, and tender care and love.

When you think no one sees you in your pain and tears, the omniscient God not only sees them but captures them and holds them and every moment of pain, sorrow, anxiety, and joy, is written down in His book.

God meets you so much in your moments of anxiety that He is not only running towards you but writes those moments down in his book because every single moment of your life is precious to Him.

Question: What picture comes to mind when you hear that God collects every tear in a bottle? How does this bring you comfort?

How can we know this to be true? David explains that in the next verse. ‘Then my enemies will retreat on the day when I call. This I know: God is for me.’ This was the ground of all of David’s confidence and trust in God. That God was for him. David knew then even in the moments when he trusted God but was still afraid, God was still for him. In the moments when David was trusting in God and not afraid, God was still for Him. In moments when David would call upon God for his enemies to retreat, David knew and was confident in this because God was for Him.

Your wandering, tears, and anxiety do not mean that God isn’t for you. Instead, our wandering, tears, and anxiety mean we are fully human beings, broken by sin, living in a fallen world, yet saved by and engaging in a relationship with God where we can bring our honest emotions to God and we will be met with His unending sympathetic care for us.

As I was reading some commentary on this Psalm, one quote on this verse stood out to me. “What can we possibly desire more, than this assurance, that, how many, or how formidable soever our enemies may be, yet there is one always ready to appear in our defense, whose power no creature is able to resist? ‘This I know,’ saith David; and had we the faith of David, we should know it too.” (Horne)

God will always be ready to rescue you and defend you. He will always be ready to walk through your anxiety with you, he is not afraid of it. All we have to do is run after God in prayer and just bring our raw, honest, and fresh emotions to him and He will guide us through it.

I’m not saying he’ll instantly take it away. I still struggle with anxiety today and wish it would have been “healed” or taken away by now. But if I know anything about the God we serve is that my greatest comfort has been found in running to Him in prayer. Whether that’s me praying to Him in moments of anxiety, or having a friend pray over me in those moments of anxiety, the safest place to be in moments of anxiety is at the feet of Jesus.

Question: What would it look like for you to be relational with God in your prayers where you were fully vulnerable and emotionally raw with God?

Thankful Prayer: Remembering where we were and thanking God for where you are now in the same breath of prayer (Psalm 56:12-13)

'I am obligated by vows to you, God; I will make my thanksgiving sacrifices to you. For you rescued me from death, even my feet from stumbling, to walk before God in the light of life.' Psalms 56:12-13

Even before God actually delivered David from his enemies, David had a confident faith so great that in David’s own heart, the anticipated rescue had already happened, so therefore David was going to waste no time in rendering praises and sacrifices back to God.

This wasn’t an arrogant confidence or foolish one, it was a confidence of unwavering faith in God that He would deliver David, therefore, David was going to give God praise while he waited because he was sure of the rescue that was to come.

While we don’t always know when our rescue or healing will come from an illness or our anxiety, what we do know is that even if the “rescue” we are hoping for doesn’t come on this side of heaven, it will come when we are reunited with Christ in heaven at the Right Hand of God.

If Christ is your confidence today and you are sure of it, let me encourage you with what has gotten me through my darkest seasons of anxiety, worship, and praise. Giving everything I have back to God and allowing Him to use me however He wants to. While you and I might see ourselves as ‘unusable’ or ‘too fragile’ for God to use us, God is in the business of meeting us where we are and using every single aspect of our lives to reflect Him and His glory.

For it is when in David’s words we “make my thanksgiving sacrifices to you.” That is when we are able to look up and see the bigger picture and light in the midst of our fear and anxiety. When we are able to thank God and surrender everything we are to Him out of our trust in Him in spite of our struggles with anxiety and fear, that is when we are able to get to the hope in verse 13 where David says

‘For you rescued me from death, even my feet from stumbling, to walk before God in the light of life.' I can’t help but think of Jesus’ words in John 8:12 where Jesus says “Jesus spoke to them again: “I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.” John 8:12“

Jesus is our light of life David is foreshadowing in his prayer. When our confidence and trust are in Jesus, He delivers us out of the darkness that once enslaved us and brings us into the light of life where we will never walk in the darkness again. This “light and life” is the gift of salvation to us by Him and through the Holy Spirit.

I love how the NLT translates verse 13 of this Psalm, 'For you have rescued me from death; you have kept my feet from slipping. So now I can walk in your presence, O God, in your life-giving light.'

When we take our eyes off of our anxiety and fears and turn them to the one who we can trust with all things and who brings us out of darkness into light, we can see that the reason God has called you by name to come into the light is so that you can walk in His presence, in His life-giving light so that you can abide and dwell deeply with Him to do the things God created you to do, even in the midst of our anxiety and fears.

The reason why it is important to thank God in our prayers is because as we see in the New Testament, thanking God is a way in which we actually can work through anxiety. 'Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. ' Philippians 4:6-7

I wish I could sit here with you today and tell you that my anxiety isn’t an issue anymore and that there’s a magic formula that makes it all go away. While I don’t have that, I do have good news for you in that we have and God and Savior who is willing right now to meet you where you are in your fear and anxiety and walk through you with it just like He did with David, and just like God has done with me.

There is hope for you today and there is light in the darkness for you today. God is ready to meet you where you are, and we are ready to meet you where you are

Question: Why do you think David connects thanking God in our prayers with praying through anxiety?

Application

For the application part of tonight, I actually want us to go ahead and break up into our small groups so that we can have smaller, more comfortable spaces for you guys to work through and apply this tonight. But first, before we do that, I want to talk to those in the room who may not struggle with anxiety like I or others do but want to be able and equipped to help support your friends who do struggle with anxiety.

The first thing you can do to support your friends through anxiety is to pray this psalm over them when you are with them and also when you are not with them. Prayer is the best gift we can give someone. So commit today to praying for your friends who struggle with these things, if we can learn to pray over them and with them first, we will be vastly more equipped to support them in their greater moments of need with anxiety.

The second thing you can do is be honest with yourself. If you have a friend who battles anxiety, you need to be honest with yourself if you’re willing and able to support your friend when they are hit with greater amounts of anxiety or panic attacks.

There are only a handful of people in my life who have seen me in a panic attack and who have walked me through and out of a panic attack. When I have my panic attacks, I am at my most vulnerable state because at that point I am in a survival state of mind and very much not aware of everything fully going on Explain OKC panic attack.

So if you know that you can support your friend in their most vulnerable moments in their anxiety, than be honest with yourself about that and with them. If you’re not, be honest with yourself about that and with your friend. It is fully okay not to be able to support them in that way. This is why God gave us a community to help support each other in areas or ways that some can’t.

However, either way, you are honest with yourself, you should always be praying for and over your friends and escort them to the throne room of Jesus through prayer. Some of my biggest comforts and encouragements from friends who have sat with me in panic attacks or have watched from a distance are their prayers. This is why prayer is so important and why we are dedicating a whole semester to talking about prayer through things like this.

The next thing you can do to support your friends in the midst of an anxiety or panic attack is to remain calm. When someone is in a panic attack, they are obviously not calm. When we see that other people around us are not calm, that makes us panic more and it ends up being a very terrible situation.

While there is a long list of ways you can support your friends through anxiety and fears, these are the last 2 ways that we’ll discuss before we break up into small groups.

The first is by making yourself available to them and asking them what helps them through their anxiety or panic attacks and how they would like help during those situations.

Everyone is different in how they respond and work through their anxiety and how I work through mine may not be the same way someone else works through theirs.

My close and best friends whom I trust to help me in these moments and who have helped me in these moments know to always walk me through the 5,4,3,2,1 method (you will walk through this method in small groups). This method works for me and helps me get out of my head and back into reality. There is also a list of things that they have (and written down in my phone and their phone) that they go to next if this first doesn’t help snap me out of it.

With one of my most recent and severe panic attacks I had back in April, my friends had to take my shirt off because I was overheating and run ice cubes down my back and stomach. Because I was so overheated and physically numb, I couldn’t feel the ice cubes on me and they eventually had to make me balance an ice cube on my nose to get me to focus on something else outside of my mind. Yes, this really happened, it’s funny to talk about now and my friends were kind enough to take pictures so if you would like to see that picture, you can come to find me after and I will show you.

Knowing these things for your friends who struggle with anxiety is a huge way of supporting them

The last way is by being available and reaching out to them. This isn’t a constant bugging them and checking in on them every day. (you will know what to say)

With that, we are going to jump into our small group time tonight.