Chill Out — Anxiety is Pointless

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, 

Dalton Shotwell

whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me — put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:4-9)

---

“Do not be anxious about anything”. Did you catch that part? Right. Ok. No problem. I’ll just relax about everything now. Thanks, Jesus. Glad we cleared that up. 

I suppose you could accuse me of overreacting to Jesus’ message about anxiety here, but I also don’t think that Jesus was joking around. In the midst of everything happening in our daily lives and around the world, which today we unfortunately know everything about at every ongoing moment, we are somehow supposed to remember to take a deep breath, chill, and be thankful for the good stuff. Stay focused on that which is praiseworthy as Jesus sees it. Even when you’re facing down a seemingly nonstop firehose of bad news and scary things and stress and stories and experiences that seem to pull you down against your own will or control. “Do not be anxious about anything.”

It makes sense when you think about it. But that’s Jesus for you, always stunning us with His fog-clearing wisdom amidst our constant worldly befuddlement. 

In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis put it this way through the voice of Screwtape, the senior demon advising Wormwood, the underling demon-in-training (if you're unfamiliar with this book, remedy that first of all, but in the meantime, “the Enemy” here is God — the enemy from Screwtape’s perspective):

“There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human's mind against the Enemy. He wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.”
​

As many of you know, Jenny and I, along with our kids, Clark and Skye, performed 15 Christmas cabaret shows this past December at the resort downtown alongside our trusty bandmates, Eric and Craig, from our worship band. Our show was an hour of cherished Christmas songs mixed with narrated stories from Coeur d’Alene’s Christmas past. Preparing for this cabaret took most of the year and was very taxing in many ways on our family. We had to coerce the kids into practicing their music and stories when it was still warm outside, and they just wanted to play — we had to rehearse Christmas music in the heat of July, for crying out loud! As the show grew closer, the prospect of sufficient ticket sales to even meet our budget began to weigh on our minds, too. Was our show actually any good? We thought so, but would anyone else think so? Would this all be a huge waste of time and effort? And perhaps above all things to worry about, to be anxious about, was maintaining our health throughout the run of the performances. For any of us to fall sick between Thanksgiving and Christmas would have posed a very serious problem indeed. 

Often, Jenny was awake at 3:00 am on account of these things, feeling anxious. I was anxious too at times, just thankfully not at 3:00 am. But Jenny was. I would feel a general “downness” for hours almost every day before a performance. The kids sometimes moaned and groaned, “Aww… do we hafta do another show tonight?!?” 

But then we’d perform the show. We’d get through it, sometimes with a flub or two, sometimes feeling a lack of connection with the audience, sometimes disappointed by a lower number of audience members than we had hoped. And don’t get me wrong — sometimes it was great and exhilarating without flaws and great energy from the audience. But it was still taxing. And we’d get through it. And every single night, all 15 performances without exception, there would be unexpected expressions of gratitude from a handful of audience members to blow away in an instant all of the fog clouding my mind with anxiety or otherwise. I was constantly surprised by people approaching with tears in their eyes to tell me how special it was to hear that song or how meaningful it was to be reminded of happy times from their childhood here in Coeur d’Alene. Or, quite often, to see the joy in my face while watching my own family perform! Several times, I was reminded by a misty-eyed parent just how blessed I was to have such a family. I would hear about how much joy they would receive by simply observing my gratitude live and on-stage for my own family as they performed. I was essentially unaware of my apparent display of gratitude in the moment, least of all because I wasn’t focused on the feeling, but it was certainly a reality for me — I just didn’t consider that it was obvious to other people. ​
​

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.”
​

I’m writing this blog post for myself as much as for anyone else’s benefit. My point in all this is that it’s all too easy to overlook the good stuff, even when it is right in front of your face. Even when it is on your face. Jesus reminds us to focus on His good blessings in our lives. There was so very much to be anxious about during our run of performances. There is so very much to be anxious about in our daily lives, in the world around us. Even as people reminded me each night of the very positive impact we were having on them and even as they reminded me of the wealth of blessings for which I could be grateful as a father in this family of performers, I was still tempted to gaze upon the plains of anxiety about … whatever. Screwtape doesn’t care so long as we gaze there and not upon God’s blessings. 

Each night, God sent people to remind me of the true value of our performances. And ultimately, all we were doing was celebrating Jesus’ birth and bringing some Christmas joy into the hearts of those who were present. This is something our “enemy” (the real one) wants to derail in any way possible. Anxiety is a very potent weapon in his diabolical arsenal. 

It’s worth noting that Jesus doesn’t give a formula for avoiding anxiety. Instead, He tries to refocus our attention in the midst of our natural anxiety towards all that is right and true and good, and in doing so, we can find peace in Him. His peace was present in the eyes and words of the grateful people who reminded me each night of the blessings present in my own life and in our family. He doesn’t tell us we can’t be anxious, just that we should try to look past it, to nullify it, to make it useless, to make it wither away in the overwhelming light of His blessings. All we have to do is look for them and focus on them - they are certainly there. And they are there for you, always. 
​

“Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me — put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”
​

Easier said than done, for sure. But the instructions are clear. And with practice, easier. Just keep practicing. Anxiety is pointless.

(Trying to be) In His peace,
Dalton