Welcome to a Gathering of EChurch@Wartburg
Christ the Redeemer overlooking Rio De Janeiro
#/media/File:Christ_on_Corcovado_mountain.JPG){kind=link}
Here is our Order of Worship
Prayer to the Holy Spirit Regarding Anxiety
"O Holy Spirit, give me stillness of soul in you.
Calm the turmoil within, with the gentleness of your peace.
Quiet the anxiety within, with a deep trust in you.
Heal the wounds of sin within, with the joy of your forgiveness.
Strengthen the faith within, with the awareness of your presence.
Confirm the hope within, with the knowledge of your strength.
Give fullness to the love within, with an outpouring of your love.
O Holy Spirit, be to me a source of light, strength and courage
so that I may hear your call ever more clearly
and follow you more generously."
~ William Browning link
A prayer of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Link
O God, early in the morning I cry to you.
Help me to pray
And to concentrate my thoughts on you:
I cannot do this alone.
In me there is darkness,
But with you there is light;
I am lonely, but you do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;
I am restless, but with you there is peace.
In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;
I do not understand your ways,
But you know the way for me…
Restore me to liberty,
And enable me to live now
That I may answer before you and before me.
Lord, whatever this day may bring,
Your name be praised.
Amen
Scripture Reading: Luke 12:8-12 (NASB Bible Gateway)
“And I say to you, everyone who confesses Me before men, the Son of Man will confess him also before the angels of God; but he who denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of God. And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him. When they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not worry about how or what you are to speak in your defense, or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”
A Nigerian Prayer link
O Lord, we beseech thee to deliver us
from the fear of an unknown future;
from fear of failure; from fear of poverty;
from fear of bereavement; from fear of loneliness;
from fear of sickness and pain;
from fear of age; from fear of death.
Help us, O Father, by thy grace to love and fear thee only,
fill our hearts with cheerful courage and loving trust in thee:
through our Lord and Master Jesus Christ.
Amen.
The Lord bless you, and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine on you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance on you,
And give you peace.
Thank You for this.
@ brian:
Putting together our EChurch is such a joy to me.
I have anxiety (sometimes complete with panic attacks, some with hyperventilating and everything), so I appreciate anything that deals with the subject.
I really don’t know what to do when you pray repeatedly to God and ask him to remove the anxiety, but it remains.
There is a Bible verse that says something about if you focus on Christ, a peace that surpasses all understanding will be granted to you (I forget how it’s worded), but that more or less has not been true for me.
I don’t know what to make of it. You can pray for a deliverance from anxiety, and dwell on and memorize the verses that talk about anxiety (as Christians often say you should do), and none of that works. š
Excellent; thank you Deb and Wade.
Daisy,
Next Sunday, August 21, I will think of you (and dedicate the message to you) entitled “Stop Worrying.” It’s from Jesus words in Luke 12:22-30. It will be the E-Church message on the weekend of August 28, and I hope that the Holy Spirit will speak to you through the words of Christ. Blessings of His infinite grace to you, and I will be praying for exactly what you have asked.
Daisy, praying…
Hi DAISY,
may we talk on Open Discussion please, only if you want to
Daisy – I understand your pain. I pray that God will allow your mind and thoughts to rest in him. I know this isn’t easy. Nothing in life is easy. Together with Wade, Dee and Deb and the rest of us on WWB will be praying for you.
@ Wade Burleson:
Thank you so much Wade! You are such a blessing to us here at TWW.
For all in need of peace this night:
‘Lord Jesus stay with usfor evening is at hand
and the day is past
Be our Companion in the Way
Kindle our hearts and awaken hope’
Daisy wrote:
I think some peoples brains are more anxious than others. Just wired that way. I have it some times, and I have my own ways of switching things up to get less anxious. I think you have to figure out what works for you.
I have been doing yoga the last few weeks and I think the deep breathing and stretches are helpful.
I still cannot understand what blasphemes against the Holy Spirit means. Is it saying something bad about the Holy Spirit or what? Speaking against Jesus it seems will be forgiven but speaking against the Holy Spirit will not,whatever that means please enlighten me.
Daisy,l can relate to you and your anxiety and panic attack problems.My prayer is for God to be with me and help me cope with these awfull problems that we both experience from time to time.Get some professional help and don’t suffer needlessly. There are various drugs that relieve the anxiety and panic quite successfully.You can find help and probably will not be cured but you will be able to cope so consider the medical help an answered prayer from God.
Bill,
You ask a very difficult question – one I’ve had myself. I’ll give you my opinion, but the truth may be different than what I write here. I’ve come to the conclusion that the Triune God – the Father, the Son, the Spirit – works (notice the singular verb “works” for we serve only ONE God) on your behalf. The FATHER moves ON BEHALF of you (For God so LOVED … that HE GAVE), the SON works FOR you (Even while we were yet sinners… CHRIST DIED for us), and the SPIRIT works IN you (If any person has NOT the Spirit in him… he is not a child of God). It seems to me that blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is a full and outright rejection and disdain of the work of the HOLY SPIRIT in me – possibly similar to “the sin unto death.” It is dying resisting the Spirit’s conviction of sin in you, revelation of truth in you, etc…. So… as to why a person can at times so bad things about the work OF CHRIST and be forgiven, but continually and finally reject as evil and bad the good work of the SPIRIT IN THEM and NOT be forgiven is because (at least as it seems to me) God made man as a “free moral agent” and He will not take to heaven that man who blasphemes the Spirit of God who is sent to “convict the world of sin and to teach the world truth.”
Hope that helps.
Thanks Wade for the explanation. After some internet searching I found that one explanation of the verse is attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to satan and that sin was committed by the Pharisees in relation to the works of the spirit through Christ while he was present on earth.This according to the writer makes the sin impossible for us to commit today since Jesus is not physically here but in heaven seated at the right hand of the Father.Does this make sense? I believe that your explanation actually blend in with the other.
Wade Burleson wrote:
Thank you to Wade and everyone else who left well wishes.
Most days the anxiety is only low-key – the full blown panic attacks are more rare.
I think anxiety may be biological for me, as it seems to run on my mother’s side of the family.
Years ago, I saw a psychiatrist for depression (which no longer seems to be much a problem for me now), but I told her I had anxiety.
She put me on an anti-anxiety medication, which I took for a few years, but it never seemed to work, so I stopped taking it.
I’ve prayed to God for deliverance from anxiety (as well as help with other things), but these days, I sometimes don’t pray at all, because it feels as though God is not listening or does not care.
But I do appreciate anyone and everyone on this thread who has said prayers for me or offered words of support.
For anyone else who is having anxiety, I am sorry. I know it can be difficult to deal with.
Daisy wrote:
Hi DAISY,
this is when the Holy Spirit prays FOR you, when you cannot pray for yourself (Romans 8:26), so you are protected from evil.
If you are suffering through a really bad day or night, let us know … I can and will do vigil prayer for you in a crisis.
@ Daisy:
Praying for you Daisy.
Thank you again for all the prayers.
I just came across this blog post (not a fan of Tim Challies, but this is a guest post on his blog by another guy, named Adam Ford):
Some Things You Should Know About Christians Who Struggle With Anxiety
http://www.challies.com/articles/some-things-you-should-know-about-christians-who-struggle-with-anxiety
The guy who wrote it, Adam Ford, said that prior to having G.A.D. (generalized anxiety) and S.A.D. (social anxiety disorder), he was an out-going introvert. That was not true for me.
I remember as a toddler being painfully shy and experiencing anxiety (I used to have Social Anxiety Disorder, but not so much – I think I still have GAD). I’ve been an introvert my whole life – I don’t think being an introvert creates anxiety, as Ford seems to suggest in his page.
Ford says he doesn’t experience worry so much as physical side effects of anxiety. I experience both.
I experience run of the mill worry, but also anxiety, and the physical backlash (the pounding heart, and on rarer occasions, waking up in the middle of the night hyperventilating, etc).
Anyway, the rest of Ford’s page on anxiety may help other Christians understand it better.
Daisy wrote:
Dang, I mean to say HE said he was
he was an out-going EXTROvert.
I have no idea why I typed “introvert” there…