Put It To Rest

When doubts filled my mind, your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer.

Katie gently turned onto her back. She didn’t want to wake John, but she didn’t want to get up. She just wanted to go back to sleep. She had been awake since 2:00 a.m., and her mind was racing. For the past hour Katie had wrestled with one worrisome thought after another. Even the smallest problems seemed to loom large in her mind during the middle of the night. She felt the urge to get up and set things right, make some necessary phone calls, balance the checkbook, and check out some information on the Internet. She recognized all of these as irrational thoughts. Still, they fired through her mind rapidly, one anxious thought after another.

Finally Katie remembered some advice she’d heard recently on a Christian radio show. The guest had talked about how Satan uses a tired and unguarded mind to set up land mines of anxiety. Katie recognized that her mind was like an exploding minefield, and she needed to follow the advice given.

Katie tried to relax her body by concentrating on her breathing. Then she began to meditate on God’s character by going through the alphabet and naming one attribute of God after another: almighty, beautiful, counselor, deliverer, eternal. Dwelling on Him and resisting the urge to worry about other things, Katie finally drifted back to sleep. Her anxious thoughts had been put to rest.

The Bible says not to be anxious about anything, but to handle all our concerns with prayer. But when anxious thoughts multiply rapidly, it can be a challenge to get our minds calm enough to pray. If anxiety has been robbing you of peace often, it might be wise to consult a Christian counselor. And we all need to learn to recognize anxious thoughts so we can counteract them with truth and sound thinking.

Rest Assured

Father, I don’t want anxiety to rob me of Your peace. Help me guard my mind against anxious thoughts.

Rest in Him: Psalm 4