How Scripture has shaped my faith: A Testimony for Connections Christian Church

November 10, 2024

Have any of you found reason to be worried or anxious this past week? Our world is inundated with voices telling us to be afraid. So much so that it is not surprising that social critics call this the Age of Anxiety. The voice to be afraid is really a twist of truth by the Enemy of our souls. While it’s important to recognize that our world and our lives are indeed quite broken, it is not a problem that we are required to solve. That is a task for the Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer of the world. This morass of false fear is particularly difficult for people like me who have a propensity to worry. I often joke that if God didn’t want me to worry, he shouldn’t have given me such a good imagination. But the truth is I have struggled with anxiety my whole life.

One of my earliest memories of this struggle was as a fourth-grade girl who had trouble sleeping and felt haunted by an unnamed fear. While my mom sought to help me figure out why I was afraid, her best gift to me was Psalm 91:

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
    will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
 I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust.”

For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
    and from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover you with his pinions,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
    his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.

As a 10 year old, I probably didn’t know what a pinon or a buckler were, but I did understand that I could tuck myself up under the wings of Jesus and be safe. As I read and re-read these words of truth, the Spirit sang them as a lullaby over my troubled heart.

While I continued to battle my anxiety into adulthood, God has been faithful to help, teach and heal me many times. Forms of relief have taken many shapes including exercise and time outdoors, intercessory prayer, intentional community, finding my good husband, even a period of taking medication. But one consistent source of comfort has been Scripture.

The trouble with anxiety is that it begins with a natural emotion–fear. It’s not sinful to be afraid; it’s just what you let your mind do with it. The Enemy will tell you that what lies ahead is too big for you, that God doesn’t love you or won’t be there for you or–my personal favorite–I’ll be fine as long as I figure out every potential scenario and prepare myself to handle each outcome. And thus begins a downward cycle of confused and chaotic thinking.

An antidote to these mind machinations is reading and meditating on God’s word. Like physical therapy for the mind, it strengthens our mind muscles into patterns of truth–reminding us of who we truly are and more importantly who God is.

While I’ve long believed in the power and importance of scripture, that doesn’t mean I have always loved reading it or faithfully memorized it. Certainly there were times when the Bible’s words sounded like the muffled, tin-can voice of an adult in the Peanuts cartoons. But there is one place I have routinely found easy to read: the Psalms. Here in the Prayer Book of God’s people, I could read and remember the truth about God, even when I was struggling to believe it myself. While I may not be able to quote long passages from memory, the repetitive reading has put small bits of truth deep in my mind that the Holy Spirit uses to interrupt a dark thought pattern–phrases like “for Thou art with me” or “his steadfast love endures forever.” Through good times and bad, I continue to read the Psalms as a remedy to my self-centered, mind movies and as a shield against the Enemy’s lies.