Afterthoughts on Anxiety

I just want to follow up briefly on my post yesterday on anxiety. 

I have friends that are going through incredibly difficult circumstances right now.  After thinking about them this morning, I realized that what I wrote yesterday may come across as harsh. 

Life in a sinful world can be intensely cruel and difficult.  Grief and sorrow will continue to persist this side of heaven. 

Jesus redeemed His bride so that she would be a witness to Himself in this world (we do such a poor job in so many ways).  Part of that witness is to extend the love, gentleness, and comfort to each other that He has extended to us.  Allowing anxiousness to persist will drive us to try to walk in our own strength, instead of in Christs by faith, and it will tempt us to desire that our will be done, and not His.

If we are committed to the joy and delight of our brothers in Christ, then we must be committed to striving for that end in the truth.  But we can't smash them over the head with it.  While what I said in yesterdays post, I believe is biblical, how those truths are communicated is just as important.

We are instructed to weep with those who weep, and to bear one anothers burdens.  We counsel with each other in gentleness and understanding.  We speak the truth in love.  We do all these things, and are able to do all these things,  because that is how Jesus is with us.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing (1Cor 13.1-3).