Anxious Much?

I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the LORD. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation. 1 Samuel 1:15-167

The most common complaint that my patients in jail ask me to address is, of course, anxiety. This isn’t surprising. Their lives have been turned upside down, they’re locked up, and the only coping mechanisms they’ve known – drugs and alcohol – have been taken away. They’re freaking out, their minds are racing, they’re not sleeping, and so, they come to me, wanting a quick fix. I’ve not been incarcerated, but I know the feeling. In the disaster of my addiction, when I was losing everything, I begged God. Take away my anxiety. Get me out of this mess. In despair, I prayed the same prayer I know the guys in jail do. God, I’m desperate. If you get me out of this, I swear, I’ll turn my life around and follow you. 

This isn’t all that different from Hannah’s behavior in today’s passage. In the story, Hannah endured tremendous sorrow due to her inability to bear children. She knew the source of her vexation and so, she took it to God, bargaining with him. If you . . . will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life (1 Samuel 1:11). God answered her prayer, and she bore Samuel, who would become one of the great prophets of Israel.

I don’t think the passage is suggesting that I should try to bargain my way out of life’s trials. I know that in my addiction, I broke almost every promise that I made to God. I do think, however, that I should model Hannah’s behavior by identifying the source of my anxiety, taking that thing to God, surrendering it to him, and following his will.

I’ve often gotten this wrong. In my anxiety, I’ll often forget to go to God, trying to fix my own mess. When I do go to God, I’ll usually just ask him to magically remove whatever is frustrating me. I’ve learned though, that God is usually trying to use my trials to shape me. So, when I go to God with my anxiety, instead of asking God to simply remove the negative feelings or the trial that’s causing them, I now try to ask God what he wants me to do with it. In the case of my addiction, I was never going to be free from anxiety until I abandoned the source of that anxiety – the drugs. It was absurd to ask for peace while I was still using.

Not all anxiety has a cause. Some people will simply always struggle with unnamed anxiety. The same principle holds though. In our vexation, we must always go to God, asking – What do you want me to do with this? Then, we must obey.