Overcoming fear & anxiety

It’s interesting to consider that anxiety and fear is heightened at the point of a woman’s greatest fruitfulness. That is, in the bringing forth of children. Along with knowing the joy of multiplication in the context of family life, it would be true to say that it’s in this place, that she’s most driven by anxiety. As a result of the fall, God said to the woman, ‘I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you will bring forth children’. Gen 3:16,17. The word ‘pain’ can be interpreted as sorrow, anxiety, fear, and terror.

As women, the cares and issues of our family life and relationships can almost paralyse us with fear. We can become so self focussed when we’re anxious that we’re barely able to see our loved ones’ needs, let alone meet them. Instead of opening our hands in offering, anxiety causes us to cling and grasp for life. We seek to preserve ourselves and our relationships from any form of pain and suffering.

We see this mechanism at work in the Israelites in the wilderness. Having already witnessed the miraculous provision of the Lord, they rose up in fear and terror, thinking their children would die in that place. Scripture records them stubbornly grumbling and complaining to the Lord. It was their ‘greedy desire’ for meat, lack of trust and their grasping for life, which caused the anger of the Lord to burn against them that day.

Mercifully, the point where this curse of pain and anxiety is laid on the woman is also the very place God has promised to keep us safe. The apostle Paul confirmed this when he wrote that women will be preserved or kept safe through the bearing of children ‘if they continue in faith and love and purity with self-restraint’. Tim 2:15. It’s the woman’s accountable offering of her ‘chaste and respectful behaviour’, her ‘gentle and quiet spirit’, and her capacity to ‘do what is right without any fear’, which actually keeps her safe from anxiety. 1Pet 3:1- 4.

Paul reminds us to ‘be anxious for nothing’, but to pray and find the peace of God which guards our hearts and minds. Phil 4: 6, 7. It’s here we find the self control to take every anxious thought captive. The Lord then speaks a word to us about our specific and individual work in our families and in the body of Christ. Amazingly, our capacity to believe and do the work comes as we receive this word of God. From a heart of faith and love, we respond in submission and obedience to this word. Grace comes, enabling us to release our children and relationships to the Lord. The bondage of fear is broken in our lives.

For our children, the Lord performs ‘wonders for the dead’ and they find life as the Lord speaks a word to them concerning their own calling and predestination. This is the place of greatest joy! As we open our hands and begin to offer, we witness this fruitful multiplication of the life of God in our families and all our
relationships.

Helen Smith

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Feature Articles
September 2008

Searching out a man

The new birth

Signs of the times

The national anthem

Overcoming fear & anxiety

Anointed with oil

Compassion that restores

The success formula

Desire to be known

At ease in your youth

The mother of all wars