How Does Anxiety Impact Your Relationships?

Prayer ~ Lord, I certainly don’t want to offend You and intentionally sin—but what is sin to one person is just life’s misery to another. Open my eyes and heart to see things as You see them. Cleanse my heart and guide me down the path of righteousness that my life would be pleasing to you. 

How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults. Keep your servant from deliberate sins! Don’t let them control me. Then I will be free of guilt and innocent of great sin. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Psalm 19:12-14

Meditate. Consider your sins.

What is sin? It is the breaking of a moral standard or transgressing a divine law. Is it just breaking the Ten Commandments…and the 613 Jewish laws written in the Bible? Susanna Wesley, mother of John Wesley, wrote to her son about sin. “Take this rule:whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of  spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it maybe in itself.”

In her book, “I Stand at the Door and Knock,” Corrie Ten Boom wrote that anxiety is a sin.

So, whatever keeps you from focusing your life—your very thoughts—on God…and away from your relationship with Him…is sin. If we confess our sin to the Lord and repent—turn away from our sin, God will forgive us. That will be the beginning of a wonderful relationship with Him.

Does anxiety keep you from God, or does it make you want to trust in Him even more? Anxiety has been a troublesome thorn in the flesh of many people during the recent pandemic no matter whether it has driven them to or away from the Lord. Choose for yourself how you see anxiety in your life…just as you ultimately choose whom you will serve. Is that thorn like this blooming prickly pear cactus in Utah? Choose how or if anxiety will impact your relation with the Lord and with others.

Friday’s Feast at the King’s Table 

Cinco de Mayo is coming up soon.  Goggle some prickly pear recipes for tasty Mexican food experiences. You’re sure to find some using fresh cactus or the pickled variety. I once asked a young Hispanic lady how her family ate fresh cactus. Her mother mostly used it in salads. I’ve used it pickled in a pork stew. It is cooked low and slow so the meat is very tender. That stew will be on my menu for May 5th.

© 2022 Text, photos, and illustrations by Mickey M. Hunacek. All rights reserved. 

All scripture quoted from the New Living Translation (NLT) unless otherwise noted. 

New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. 

Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Biblical search from Blue Letter Bible - http://v3.blueletterbible.org/search.cfm.