Homework to Battle Anxiety
Sunday we looked at Philippians 4:6-7, opening with the phrase, “Do not be anxious about anything.” Anxiety is crippling so many people today, but Paul offers a clear antidote to anxiety:Â Prayer. I challenged us to do two things this week (a homework assignment?).
First: Take time to write down everything causing you anxiety. Do your best to capture all that comes to mind, no matter how long the list. Once you are done, pray over the list and ask God to make it clear which issue is causing the most stress and worry. Really try to narrow it down to one thing, or two at the very most. My experience has been that most anxiety in life is caused by one or two main issues. Once those are dealt with, the overall anxiety level drops significantly. Narrow it down to that one thing, and then commit to praying over it every day this week. Turn it over to the Lord, give it to Him, and trust that He will guide you to a clear way through it.
Second, begin your day, every day this week, focused on gratitude. Verse 6 continues, “but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving…” Many issues that cause anxiety are often connected to a lack of gratitude. Being intentional to give thanks will help focus your heart on a positive state that walks full of joy for all that God has provided. Do your best to begin the day by writing down at least one item you are grateful for from the previous day. Three would be better, five is for the overachievers. It’s important to actually write it down, and for it to be as specific as possible. Instead of “I’m grateful for my family,” try to be as specific as possible, “I’m grateful that my husband took out the trash in the rain last night without me asking.” Write these down so you can review them later if you want.
Both of these exercises are meant to grow our prayer muscles. Prayer can be hard work for sure, but it is worth it. Tim Keller said “it’s your prayer life that tells you what you’re really made of spiritually.” He believed prayer is one of the primary ways we experience God working in our lives. He even said that if he could go back and do one thing differently in ministry, it would have been to pray more.
I’ve said many times that I believe our commitment to prayer as a church will be the thing that makes the biggest difference in the life of our church in the coming year. I’ve ordered Keller’s book on prayer in an effort to continue to expand my prayer life. I’d love to hear what your strategy is to grow your prayer life this year.
If you struggle to pray, try using the simple acronym ACTS to guide you:
A: Adoration. Start your prayers by adoring and praising God. Focus on His person and His character. Keller said, “two-thirds of the Lord’s Prayer is adoration. So I guess what this means is, don’t start praying to God for the thing you want until you’ve spent time realizing that in God you’ve got everything you want.”
C: Confession. Take time to confess your sins and seek forgiveness. Ask God to reveal any present sin in your life and believe that He will forgive you (1 John 1:9). Don’t obsess over this. Trust that He will reveal what you need to deal with today, even if not every sin is brought to light right away.
T: Thanksgiving. Rightly order your heart by giving thanks for ways He has already provided for you. Like a child approaching a parent, the conversation goes better when the heart of the child is full of gratitude.
S: Supplication. This is the part where we bring Him our requests. Some believers think we shouldn’t ask God for things, but Scripture is clear that we are to bring Him our requests, as seen in the Lord’s Prayer (“give us this day our daily bread.”) and in many other passages. Ask by faith, and ask with a teachable heart, knowing that in our limited wisdom we may not be asking for the right things (James 4:2-3).
Prayer is not a formula, but ACTS can help provide an easy approach to get started when you don’t know what to do. What’s important is that we become more intentional to pray, as this is the way we start walking by faith in 2026!