A mother stopped at her parents’ home for just a few moments to pick something up.  While she went into the house with her two little children, she left her car running in the driveway.  As they were coming back out, her four-year-old boy ran to the car, opened the door, climbed in the driver’s seat and accidentally hit the gearshift lever.  He put the car into drive and it ran right through the garage door of her parents’ house!  The mother stood in stunned amazement as she watched the car crash through the door.  There was nothing she could do.  It was out of her control.  Thankfully, no one was hurt.

A week later the woman’s husband was driving the same car.  He was dropping off a friend at home and his four-year-old son was sitting in the backseat.  As the father was driving into the driveway approaching his friend’s garage, he realized that he was on glare ice.  He put his foot on the brake but realized it wasn’t going to do any good.  As the car slid closer to the closed garage door, he said to his friend, “I think we’re in big trouble…” A moment later they crashed through the garage door!  His little boy in the backseat quietly said, “It’s OK, Dad, the same thing happened to me last week.”

It’s a horrible feeling, being out of control, isn’t it?  Imagine you are behind the wheel of a car driving 40 kph on a curving mountain road.  The road is gravel, but your low rate of speed should be safe for the road conditions… or so you think.  This is what I thought, anyway, as an 18-year old driving in a canyon in the Black Hills in 1989.  I was moving along, in control, but unaware that the gravel on the curve I was driving on was suddenly getting deeper.

I was turning to the right.  On my right side, a canyon wall going up.  On my left, a 200 foot cliff going down.  During the turn, all of a sudden, the road felt different.  The steering wheel became loose and unresponsive.  My heart began to pound as I realized that my car was now sliding on thick gravel.  Sliding right toward that cliff.  Sliding out of control.  At this point, there was nothing I could do.  Turning the wheel or braking did nothing.  All I could do is watch the edge of the cliff come, and try to hold on.  Things were no longer in my control.  All I could do is hold on to the steering wheel for dear life as my car went airborne, and then rolled down the hill.  Thankfully, God’s angels saved my life.  But I wouldn’t choose to do that again. J

Few people ever choose to experience the feeling of being absolutely and completely out of control.  It is awful.  It is unnatural, uncomfortable, and can create intense anxiety.  From time to time, we all experience the sheer panic of being out of control.  But it isn’t the way we want to go through life.  We want to have a solid base underneath, to have a grip on our lives.  But there are so many things that make us feel we are out of control…

Like struggling with anxiety and depression.  Anxiety and depression is the #1 emotional illness in our country today.  30 million North Americans struggle with it.  That’s 1 in 10 of us.  By definition, anxiety is the uneasiness of mind and body.  Something is worrying you or scaring you.  And because of that, you avoid doing things and going places and enjoying life.  And when you fear that the worst will happen, your own thoughts may help to bring it about. “Fear,” a writer once said, “Is the wrong use of imagination. It is anticipating the worst, not the best, that can happen.”  An example…

A salesman, driving on a lonely country road one dark and rainy night, got a flat. He opened the trunk—no lug wrench. The light from a farmhouse could be seen dimly up the road. He set out on foot through the driving rain. Surely the farmer would have a lug wrench he could borrow, he thought. Of course, it was late at night—the farmer would be asleep in his warm, dry bed. Maybe he wouldn’t answer the door. And even if he did, he’d be angry at being awakened in the middle of the night. The salesman, picking his way blindly in the dark, stumbled on. By now his shoes and clothing were soaked. Even if the farmer did answer his knock, he would probably shout something like, “What’s the big idea waking me up at this hour!”

This thought made the salesman angry. What right did that farmer have to refuse to loan him a lug wrench? After all, here he was, stranded in the middle of nowhere, soaked to the skin! That farmer was a selfish clod—no doubt about that! The salesman finally reached the house, and banged loudly on the door. A light went on inside, and a window opened above. “Who is it?” a voice called out. “You know very well who it is!” yelled the salesman, his face white with anger. “It’s me! You can keep your blasted lug wrench. I wouldn’t borrow it now if you had the last one on earth!” 

Now, in the context of this story, that pattern of thinking probably seems silly.  But many of us are taken captive by those kinds of thoughts and fears!  Have you ever got into a pattern of thinking like that?  I believe God can help us Get a Grip On Our Lives!  The first thing to know is this:  You are not alone in your struggle.  I know there are some of you sitting here today that struggle with anxiety and depression.  You are not alone.  You have 30 million people with you. But you also have a loving God with you!  He says: “I am with you always.” (Mt.28:20).  And in Isaiah 43, we hear: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.”  And in Joshua 1, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  Friends, God is with us.  We need to know that.

Last Sunday night, we learned that one thing that brings anxiety & depression on is when certain personality traits begin working against us instead of for us.  Traits like perfectionism, obsessive thinking, being highly analytical, being a people pleaser, and being a worrier.

Let’s talk for a moment about being a Worrier.  Who here worries?  Do you think we can all admit that worrying is about the biggest waste of time there is?  With a God who loves us the way God loves us, do we ever have a reason to worry?  Our text for today is Matthew 6:34.  “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  When things are out of our control, and we don’t want to be “out of control,” we need to put them into God’s hands.  Worrying will never help.  God will!

Dr. E. Stanley Jones said:  “I am inwardly fashioned for faith, not for fear. Fear is not my native land; faith is. I am so made that worry and anxiety are sand in the machinery of life; faith is the oil. I live better by faith and confidence than by fear, doubt and anxiety. In anxiety and worry, my being is gasping for breath—these are not my native air. But in faith and confidence, I breathe freely—these are my native air. A John Hopkins University doctor says, “We do not know why it is that worriers die sooner than the non-worriers, but that is a fact.” But I, who am simple of mind, think I know; We are inwardly constructed in nerve and tissue, brain cell and soul, for faith and not for fear. God made us that way. To live by worry is to live against reality.”

So why do we worry?  We’re flawed, aren’t we? We have a disease called sin.  And if we have a disease called A&D, then it’s going to take those worries and magnify them!

There is nothing more helpful for you to get a grip on your life than knowing You Have A Loving Saviour.  Does your life feel out of control?  Do you need help in getting a grip?  Know that Jesus wants to help you!  Look at how Jesus is always helping people!  How He went out of his way to heal the man born blind, by touching him, putting mud in his eyes, and sharing the light with him.  Or when the bleeding woman so desperately needed Him, and He stopped the crowd from hurrying Him along and took time to tend to her life and her soul.  Or when He sat down at the well with the Samaritan woman and tended to her spiritual needs.  Not to mention his sacrificial love that led Him to the cross for you and me – to remove our one and only real problem!  You have a loving Saviour!  One who has given you real life – here and now!

So, whether or not you suffer from anxiety and depression, here is what will help us with Getting a Grip on Life.  And that isLiving in the Present.  “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.”  Living in the present means that you aren’t worrying about the past.  You aren’t worrying about the future.  You are basking in the glow of God’s love in that moment you are in, and the certainty that you are a child of his whom He is caring for.  You know that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him.” (Rom.8:28).  When we are living in the present, there is no anxiety.  No depression.

How do we live in the present?  You know what?  We can’t “get ourselves” into the present.  It isn’t a state of mind we can get ourselves into.  I can’t get you there by just telling you to live in the present.  Here is where God helps us the most.  Living in the present comes when we don’t chase down each one of those worries.  When, with God’s help, we don’t entertain every one of those negative thoughts.  But we hold them captive and give them to God!  Paul wrote: “we take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Cor.10:5). Trusting God, we turn those thoughts over to Him.  We go to the Word of God.

In Matthew 14, we hear the disciples were in a boat, on a lake, in a storm.  They were terrified.  They were going to perish!  Jesus comes to them and tells them, “Don’t be afraid.”  In other words, I am here.  What reason do you have to worry?  When negative thoughts, fearful thoughts, panic, or anxious thoughts enter our brain, we need to put ourselves in that boat and give those thoughts to God and let Him take care of them!  The One who can still storms!

What could be more important than growing in our faith in this powerful, loving God?  The more we grow in faith, the more strength the Holy Spirit gives us, the more we will be able to live in a constant state of thankfulness and trust!  The Word tells us to be thankful – always.  Isaiah 12:2 says: “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid.  The Lord, the Lord, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.”  What if we were to live life with the attitude of: “God is on my side.  I have no reason to be afraid.  I have every reason to be thankful.  The thing that is happening to me now can’t hurt me.  It is even for my good.  It is something to be thankful for because it is making me stronger.  Now I am going to thank God for it and give it over to Him!  And ask Him to help me do what I need to do.”

If you suffer from anxiety and depression, it doesn’t mean your faith in God is weak or that you’ve lost your faith.  If you suffer from these thoughts and fears, you may need the help of a doctor.  You may need counseling.  You may even need some medication.  And you certainly need a plan of action to change the way you think!  But most of all, you need to rely on your loving God more than ever before!  When we begin taking on life with God’s help, when we begin living in the present, we will begin getting a grip on life.  I want to emphasize that thought in closing with a poem by Annie Johnson Flint called “But God...”

I know not, but God knows;
Oh, blessed rest from fear!
All my unfolding days
To Him are plain and clear.

Each anxious, puzzled “Why?”
From doubt or dread that grows,
Finds answer in this thought:
I know not, but He knows.

I cannot, but God can;
Oh, balm for all my care!
The burden that I drop
His hand will lift and bear.

Though eagle pinions tire,
I walk where once I ran, This is
my strength to know
I cannot, but He can.

I see not, but God sees;
Oh, all sufficient light!
My dark and hidden way
To Him is always bright.

My strained and peering eyes
May close in restful ease,
And I in peace may sleep;
I see not, but He sees.

Amen.