I recently read a front page headline screaming 'Gen Anxiety' speaking of statistics for anxiety disorders in youth. I could tell them how to solve the problem. The solution is very simple: open all their hearts and minds to the hope of the Bible.
I am not without personal experience of anxiety. In addition to possessing an excessive level of normal fears that make for a cautious life under the sun, including fear of heights, riding elevators and planes, I experienced an illness that left me with anxiety and depression (the sort that is like a fog pressing the brain and leaves one suicidally fantasising). I look forward not back, but for the reference of readers, my anxiety was deep and over two years long and involved such simple tasks as eating, walking and sleeping, all of which had answers in hope and faith that allowed me to both understand the cause and overcome (see here). I overcame with the Hope of the Bible and Faith in the Power of the Bible. I found the Bible an anchor to the soul from all anxious fears.
The Apostle Paul, who is known to have suffered health problems (2 Cor 12:7-8) and at the time of writing was facing an uncertain, but certainly nasty future, expressed for me that the Hope in the promise of the Bible is an anchor to the soul.
Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; (Hebrews 6:17-19)
It is no accident that a generation with no knowledge in the promises, let alone hope and with no faith is the most anxious and fearful. If we could have the knowledge and relationship of perfect faith, we are told on authority, it would cast out all fear.
And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear has torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love. (1 Jn 4:16-18)
Being sometimes strong and sometimes failing creatures, we tend to be somewhere on a continuum from absolute fear and no faith to the other end of perfect faith and no fear. There was a leader named Samson who turns failure into success, and pulls down a whole building killing the entire leadership of his nation's enemies – and himself. If we cannot at the moment imagine ourselves having such a moment of perfect faith with no fear, doing such a thing, do not be too hard on yourself. We may not have made such a mess of our life as Samson did to end up in a place to have to exercise such faith. Samson joined an elite list of those of the greatest faith (Hebrews 11:32), and is an example of both failure and a high standard as an inspiration for others: we should never limit ourselves as to what we may be able to do with a strong faith. The Apostle John and the examples of the Bible establish that there is a relationship between a life without any fear and with no anxiety and dwelling in the love of God. Dwelling in the love of God may be equated with the hope in the God that does not lie that is the anchor to the soul.
Smooth words may seem easy, but pragmatically how do we hold onto this anchor for the soul and cast out all fear?
This anxious generation shows us by what is lacking, the way to gain an anchor to the soul. Unlike other generations who knew their parents and nation's history and were steeped in traditions handed from generation to generation as necessary knowledge, this generation has almost no knowledge of their own, or their nation's, history. Even many who read the Bible may not know much history. Not only do most youth not have an anchor of their soul, they have no anchor from the incessant restless currents of change at all, even in their own culture.
Right from the beginning there was the growing body of Bible text as a record of history. The record of the lived experience of others of faith, was available for the people of God to apply in any trouble. Job's friends when faced with Job's trouble where he was suicidal and wished to die, tapped into their roots, their history, their wisdom which was their anchor.
For enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers: (For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow:) Shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their heart? (Job 8:8-10)
Jobs friend's point is that even the aged can know nothing much, as even a long life is too short, but something can be known from the collected experience of the fathers. If youth do not know any history and reject any connection to the wisdom of their parents and forefathers, they do not even know the 'nothing' of life experience to anchor their souls when faced with trouble! No wonder they suffer excessive anxiety.
The history of the Bible is peculiar. It is not dry dates and events, but the personal history of lives: their struggle, faith and the human condition. The Bible's history of Israel as a nation is always about the condition of the people.
I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old: Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. (Psalm 78:2-4)
The Bible is even more remarkable as, unlike any other history, the history was always, even from the beginning, about the future. All culture may be anchored in the past, but one anchor point still allows the currents and winds to move us. But the Bible anchors our soul locating us between two points; the consistency of 4,000 years of the past experience and the certain hope of our own future. Past evidence of fulfilled promises points to the certainty of future events.
We may suffer as Job and not understand it and think to ourselves that there is no hope to have faith in. Our personal experience, especially if young, is so limited and our minds so prone to defeatism and limited understanding that we are shipwrecked in light winds. A soul anchored in the knowledge of the continuum of the Bible, between past and future, has the varied experience of all the fathers who waited in faith for their future to overcome great storms. And the father's future is our future also. Their faith in their future is our hope.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speak. By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. (Hebrews 11:1-6)
We have the testimony of witnesses that there is a reward in the future, as already the evidence of it is seen in the recorded fulfilment in the lives as they are directed in the linear purpose of God to fill the earth with his Glory. Is there anything so terrible that Gen (eration) Anxiety needs be anxious about? Are they to be sawn asunder? No? Are they fearful of being eaten by lions? The whole of the history of the Bible gives context, proportion and perspective from their past to our future to all possible issues of life. This is the anchor to the soul, that no current or spirit of the age can move us, if we chose to anchor ourself to it.
And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. (Hebrews 11:32-40)
