Manna Monday | battling anxiety with the Lord

Anxiety is something I think we all face, but one thing is true. God hasn't let us stay alone in it. The beautiful thing about God's word is that it offers both comfort, but also there are action steps that we can take daily to center our minds, to calm our minds, and center our hearts. Being anxious is not something that we should feel guilty about. There are so many different causes behind anxiety, as Grant shared a couple weeks ago.

Anxiety can just be from busyness and being too overwhelmed with cares of this world. Where our mind starts focusing on the things of this world rather than on Christ centered principles. And so today, let's explore anxiety and some beautiful solutions through scripture. And I wanna give you a meditative prayer with breath to start practicing daily. The first thing with combating anxious thoughts or anxiety is to start your day, every day, with scripture.

Philippians 4:6-7 says to "not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, with gratefulness, being grateful, let your request be made known to God." The practice of this is just to read one passage each morning that reminds you that God is in control. And write it down and just repeat it. So maybe this week, just repeat Philippians 4:6-7 To not be anxious about anything, but by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

And let that scripture not only resonate in your heart this week, but also practice it. Make every request. It's okay. He'll take all the requests, and then His perfect sovereign will will be accomplished. So, let's get on one verse this week, Philippians 4:6-7.

Memorize it, meditate it, and practice it. The second thing is we want to replace worry with prayer. So, first Peter 5:7 says to "cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. The Lord, in his sovereignty, cares so much for you, and He doesn't want you to be anxious. And so when anxious thoughts hit, pause and just say a short prayer out loud, giving that specific worry to God.

The third actionable item this week is to meditate on God's presence. So the first one is start your day with scripture. The second one is replace worry with prayer. And then the third one is meditate on the presence of God. I love the Psalm 46:10.

It says, be still and know that I am God. And I would just say, hey, take five minutes daily, just to sit in silence and just repeat that verse. Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that You are the Lord, that You are king, that You are sovereign, that you sit on the throne, and just breathing deeply, and remind yourself that God is in control. Some beautiful biblical examples of combating anxiety, but the truth is, God also gives us resources and helps us explore with our minds the science of anxiety.

And now from a practical standpoint, so much research goes into how breath work training can combat anxiety. So I wanna give you something that I do. And this is a- just think of it like a biblical breathing exercise. And so what I wanna call it is peace in his presence, and it takes about five minutes. But what you do is you just get into a comfortable position with crossing your legs, sitting on the ground, close your eyes, and just be in a restful state.

And I want you to do this. I want you to inhale slowly for four seconds. And as you're inhaling through the nose, think about this part of scripture, Psalm 46:10, be still. As you inhale, deep breath in, think be still in your mind. And then as you intentionally exhale for another four seconds, think, and know that I am God.

You breathe in *breath* "be still," and you exhale *breath* "that I am God." And you just repeat that. Not only does that give you scripture for your soul, but it also gives you this relaxed prayer associated with breath work. So much research shows that the more intentional we are with our breath, if we can master our breath, we can master our mind. And just to center our mind by centering our breath, all grounded on the foundation that our King is on the throne, is in control.

Anxiety is something that we, a lot of times, have created in our own life through repetitive actions and busyness and worry. But we can reverse those pathways. We can retrain our mind to think a different way. And as we do, we need to practice a different way. So not only do we wanna memorize, and we wanna we wanna repeat scripture, but we when we attach it to breath work, we can truly create a shift in our mind heading into the future.

So may that be a blessing to you. I pray that you would apply that to your life this week. Thank you so much for listening.