I struggle off and on with anxiety and depression, and for a while, I had a pretty good handle on both. As I get older, and as my hormones change, I’ve found myself struggling a lot with anxiety, the kind that just comes up with no obvious reason and washes over you, and then you find yourself suddenly drowning when you could have been laughing just moments before. It’s funny that you can know what’s going on, but in the moment, you can’t will your body to believe that everything is going to be ok.
Sunday morning, just as I should have been getting ready for church, that anxiety washed over me, and suddenly I was fighting for my life instead of looking forward to spending some time worshiping. At first, I decided I wouldn’t go, I’d rest and calm down, and then I’d watch our service later on YouTube. I grabbed a cup of coffee and tried to relax on the couch and calm down, but God had other plans for me.
Until I experienced it for myself, I found it weird when people would say God told them to do something. But over the last few years, I’ve turned back to God, and I’ve begun to mature in my faith, and sometimes God tells me things. It’s hard to explain how you can hear with your heart and not with your ears, but that’s the best way I can describe it. And Sunday morning, God started speaking to my heart, and in the middle of that anxiety, I argued back. He told me to get up and get dressed for church. I argued back that I couldn’t. Then he said, “With me, you can.” I replied that I wasn’t strong enough. And what snapped me into action, 10 minutes before I needed to leave for church, was God asking me why I was limiting him, doubting his power, and then again that I could do this with Him. So, I got dressed in record time and made it to church only a few minutes late.
Our services start with a period of worship, so the first song was playing when I got there. I sat in my regular spot and began to worship. I was in tears before I left home ( my husband, poor man, was confused why I was going to church in the state I was in), and not long into worship, I moved on from crying to sobbing, and I sat down in the pew, bowed my head, and I prayed, and I worshiped. And then I stood up and worshiped some more. You could feel the Holy Spirit moving through our service, and at the end of our worship period, we kept singing one of the songs after it was technically over. Hearing so many people sing out to God is the most beautiful sound.
Our pastor preached his sermon from Exodus 3, where Moses encounters the Lord as the burning bush and is called to go and lead the Israelites out of Egypt. Moses was reluctant, and he argued and whined that he wasn’t good enough, and he even asked God to send someone else. I had a good little chuckle to myself because I’d done that very same dance with God about going to church that morning. I had also been doing that dance with God about a couple of other things in my life. At this point, it was pretty obvious why God wanted me at church.
In the margin of my Bible, in Exodus 3, I’d previously written, “Sometimes we don’t feel worthy to do what God has asked us to do, but here we can see that when He asks something of us, He is with us.” Below that, my Bible now says, “The one who calls you goes with you”, a statement our pastor had us write down during his sermon. I needed those words, and God knew it!
The last thing from the sermon I want to share is that our pastor said, “Some of you are listening to this sermon, not because it’s just for you, but because you need to teach somebody else this coming week or the next week what it says.” In my case, I believe it’s both. I needed those words, but I also believe there is someone else out there who needs them too.
When God asks us to do something, He’s there with us. He goes with us. He is our strength and our refuge. He may choose to quiet the storm, but He may choose to lead us through it. Keep your eyes on Him, be obedient, and trust in Him. Know that He is with you. He is with us through the anxiety and the self-doubt.