Calm Your Anxiety: Winning the Fight Against Worry

By Robert J. Morgan

Does your anxiety constantly make you question whether you have control, if you're safe, or if you have the power to change? Anxiety often creates an intense, excessive, and persistent worry and fear that makes your normal day-to-day feel challenging and overwhelming. You know that phrase . . . practice makes perfect. What if practice could help you create a better relationship with your anxiety?

Pastor and bestselling author, Robert Morgan understands your struggle because he has lived with anxiety his entire life. He can teach you how to change your life by learning how to deal with your anxiety. In Calm Your Anxiety: Winning the Fight Against Worry, you'll learn how to:

• use biblical insight to help you better understand and cope with your anxiety.
• create joy, nearness to God, and peace.
• develop new daily habits that will help you deal with anxiety.
• identify triggers and how to be proactive in your daily routine.

We all know that there is no cure for anxiety. It is something you live with, but that doesn't mean it has to take over your life. You are in control, and with God's help, you can wage war against anxiety and live a more fulfilling life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Sep 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9781400335510

Robert J. Morgan

Robert J. Morgan teaches the Bible each week on his podcast, The Robert J. Morgan Podcast, and through his speaking engagements and his books, including: The Red Sea Rules, The Strength You Need, 100 Bible Verses That Made America, The 50 Final Events in World History, and Then Sings My Soul. He also serves as associate pastor at World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

The Habit of Joy

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard someone say, I just want to be happy, I think I’d be a contender for the Forbes list of America’s wealthiest people, right up there with the likes of Warren Buffett and Oprah. Especially if I include the number of times I’ve said or thought it myself! The Bible, however, mentions little about being happy, because happiness is an emotion that comes and goes depending on happenings. The Bible speaks of something deeper—joy and rejoicing—, which are dispositions of the heart. That’s why joy and sorrow are not mutually exclusive. Jesus was anointed with the oil of joy, yet He wept (Hebrews 1:9; John 11:35). The apostle Paul spoke of being sorrowful, yet always rejoicing (2 Corinthians 6:10).

Happiness is an emotion; joy is an attitude. Attitudes are deeper. They are richer. And the right attitudes provide the soil for healthier emotions as we mature. Emotions come and go, but attitudes come and grow. According to the Bible, one step toward overcoming anxiety is cultivating the attitude of rejoicing.

It’s not don’t worry, be happy like Bobby McFerrin wrote in his hit song back in 1988. It’s Rejoice in the Lord, an Old Testament expression passed along among believers starting in the centuries before Christ’s birth. Paul later added that we should rejoice always and not be anxious about anything (Philippians 4:4, 6).

It’s possible for you to be joyful today. Calming your anxiety and waging war on worry begins with choosing to tap into the Lord Himself as the fountainhead of hope and as our reservoir of joy. But what does it actually mean to rejoice in the Lord? After considering this for many years, I’ve come to see it as not only a command we obey but a choice we make.

A COMMAND AND A CHOICE

I understand this as a command because the eleven Old Testament references to "rejoice in the Lord" convey as much authority as the Ten Commandments. Which means that when we read the words Rejoice in the Lord, we can preface them with Thou shalt . . . This is something God expects. It’s a part of obedience and righteousness, and neglecting it is a sin.

Let’s quickly trace some of the very stressful situations where this phrase was used in the Old Testament.

The first person to have uttered the words Rejoice in the Lord was Hannah, a woman who had battled extreme anxiety because of severe struggles in her home. But in 1 Samuel 2, the Lord bestowed grace amid her troubles, and, as she worshipped with her little boy, Samuel, in the tabernacle in Shiloh, she exclaimed, "My heart rejoices in the Lord" (v.1). She had found the secret of converting her pain into praise.

The next time we see this phrase is from the pen of David, after he repented of devastating sin. He found God’s forgiveness, brought himself back into the will of the Lord, and exclaimed in Psalm 32:11: "Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart!"

We also come across this phrase in Psalm 35, when David was fighting off an attack by his enemies. He prayed for deliverance and pledged to "rejoice in the Lord and delight in his salvation. He declared, My whole being will exclaim, ‘Who is like you, LORD? You rescue the poor from those too strong for them’" (vv. 9–10).

Isaiah 29:19 reveals that those who had been brought low or were lacking resources in Israel would still find joy: "Once more the humble will rejoice in the Lord; the needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel."

Joel 2:23 indicates that even the changing of the seasons is cause for rejoicing: "Be glad, people of Zion, rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given you the autumn rains because he is faithful."

At the end of the book of Habakkuk, we read a passage that represents the most visual depiction of raw faith in God’s Word: "Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior" (3:17–18). Even when everything else goes wrong, the Lord Himself stays upright, and we can rejoice in Him.

The final Old Testament reference is in Zechariah 10:7, where the Lord promised that the beleaguered Israelites would see better days, be lighthearted, and instinctively obey the injunction to rejoice in the Lord.¹

According to Scripture, rejoicing isn’t just a good idea, a pleasant suggestion, or a laudable quality. God’s people are to enjoy life. God wants you to enjoy life. We ought to have joy, and it’s not optional. It is a command from the God of all joy who doesn’t want His children doubting His providence, distrusting His promises, or discounting His sovereignty.

Rejoicing in the Lord is not only a command we obey; it’s a choice we make. The Lord wants each of us to opt for joy. To choose it. But not in the way that motivational speakers and home decorators have popularized it. The biblical version of choosing joy doesn’t turn a blind eye to our pain. In fact, there’s nothing superficial about this decision.

Rejoicing in the Lord demonstrates our willingness to trust God so much that our attitudes are affected. When we make up our minds to rely on Him day after day, in storm and sunshine, our burdens are lifted even if our circumstances for the moment are unchanged or deteriorating. Standing on His promises, our spirits are elevated and our emotions lift upward as our perspective shifts Godward.

Perhaps your spirits are low right now; mine often are. But it is unhelpful and even unholy to remain in such a condition.

Thankfully, God doesn’t give us commandments without providing the grace needed to fulfill them. Like my brothers and sisters in Scripture, I’ve learned the hard way that I must exercise control over my own attitudes. More accurately, I must let the Holy Spirit have control over it. I don’t have to live at the mercy of my feelings. I can choose to get up off the ground, to cast a heavenward glance, and to decide I’m going to serve the Lord with gladness. Frankly, that’s difficult. I couldn’t do it without the truth of Scripture and the grace of God. Yet there comes a time when we say, "I’m tired of living in fear when God has told me to walk by faith. He has commanded me to rejoice in Him always. I’m going to change my outlook to an uplook, even if I have to force