Anxiety

Part 6 - Worrywarts are Nearsighted

What's your focus? Mostly, we focus on school, on graduation from school, on job-related turmoil, on our pet anxieties? To this extent, worrywarts are nearsighted. Christ urges us to focus on His Second Coming and the judgment to come. This life pales in insignificance when compared to eternity in heaven or eternity in hell. Jesus therefore exhorts, "Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able." Such striving requires focus.

To whip worry, we must have focus. We must avoid certain distractions. Jesus gives us three. The text is Luke 21:34-36. "Be on guard, so that your hearts will not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life, and that day will not come on you suddenly like a trap; for it will come upon all those who dwell on the face of all the earth. But keep on the alert at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man."

The first distraction is dissipation. Dissipation is loose, wasteful, profligate, reckless living. The prodigal son is one of the best biblical examples. "He squandered his estate with loose living (Luke 15:13). The result was sad. "He would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating" (Luke 15:16). Too often we major in dissipation, spending all we have on that which counts for nothing. The devilish objective is to distract us from the things of God. We concentrate on the world. We are nearsighted.

Drunkenness is the second major distraction. On the cross, Jesus would not take wine and gall to dull His senses (Matthew 27:34). He "kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously" (1 Peter 2:23). Notice the accent on judgement. Alcohol hampers our reflexes and dulls our awareness. We cannot seek God. We are nearsighted.

Anxiety is the third major distraction from God, eternity, the Second Coming, and final judgment. Grammatically, the three distractions appear in one prepositional phrase. We must "not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life." Note this. According to Jesus, when it comes to distracting us from eternity, anxiety is just as devastating as drunkenness. Do we abhor drunkenness? Yes. Do we abhor anxiety with the same fervor? Probably not. We may in fact embrace anxiety.

In addition, dissipation, drunkenness and anxiety weigh down our hearts. In past lessons we discussed anxiety over food, clothing, the future, and what we will speak. These anxieties center our thoughts upon the here and now and the immediate future. They take our eyes off eternity and the life to come. Our minds are filled with turmoil. What will we eat? What will we wear? What will we say? What will we do? Our emotions become frayed. Panic sets in. Our focus is close in. Worrywarts are indeed nearsighted. Our ability to make decisions is paralyzed by questions and panic. We are incapacitated. We cannot act.

Christ cautions you so that these diversions do not weigh you down and you miss eternal life in heaven. Anxiety distracts you. On the other hand, entrust yourself to the Sovereign God (1 Peter 2:23). "Fix your eyes on Jesus..." (Hebrews 12:2). "Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth" (Colossians 3:2). "Pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17). "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness" (Matthew 6:33). Anxious? It's a nasty distraction. Get reoriented. Pursue eternal perspective on life.