Tiny Little Things

Hi tiny little ones! How’s your week so far? The topic of mental health has been on the surface for the past ten years. And this week, I want to share a slice of my life from when this topic was not yet a trend. I was leading a group, and we talked about the holiness of God and how we live in it.

I remember how I used to let anxieties win over my life to the point that it literally ate me up physically. I don’t know when it first started, but I can recall how, since my early twenties, every bit of thought could give me anxiety. It tickled my chest down to my stomach that when the negative thoughts came, my mood and health couldn’t cope up. I prayed, and it went away, things settled, and I looked okay for a while. But every time unexpected things came, the anxiety acted up again.

The older generation usually disregards anxiety as a mere mental health issue and sees a person who struggles with it as someone who lacks faith and does not pray enough. While some of the younger generation see this as an old-fashioned view, and that faith and prayers are not enough to solve anxiety issues, we Christians cannot deny that anxiety is a small part of the consequences of sin that all humans could experience. God is holy (Jn 4:24), and because He created mankind in His image and likeness, He must have created the first humankind in His holiness. This holiness enabled Adam and Eve to be in a fellowship with Him because He is holy. Only by that fellowship with the Creator will human joy be made full (Jn 15:11) and there is no place for anxiety.

Now, everyone who has experienced anxiety (or maybe has empathy to feel those with anxiety) will know that it is an enemy that hinders us from feeling the love, comfort, and joy that God has poured out to us. We somehow become pigheaded, so that no words actually matter much to cure us (if you want to say it as a health issue). This health issue suddenly sounds spiritual to me that if I could not feel the love of God abundantly flow within me, how could I say that my heart was right with the Lord? Didn’t Jesus say that those whose heart is pure shall see God (Matt 5:8)? This hits me with the realisation that the responsibility to guard my heart is on me, that if I let anxiety win over my heart, it would grip me hard, entangle me so that I could not run freely in the race God sets for me. Anxiety makes my heart contaminated with pain, fear, sorrow, and all the impurity that blocks me from seeing God’s glory. How would I welcome Jesus into my heart if it is not holy?

The Bible may not tell us much with the term anxiety, but it has taught us so many things to treat the core problem of our hurt heart: holiness. Because holiness in the Bible does not only talk about going to church every Sunday or saying a blessing on every occasion, it teaches us more than that: to see God and to live in fellowship with Him. Because isn’t how God first created Adam and Eve in His image and likeness, so that they could have fellowship with Him?

If you are reading this with anxiety that pierces through your heart, or you know someone who struggles with it, remember that we are not to face this alone. God has given His Holy Spirit to guide us, and if we let Him, we will see Him work wonderfully in us. Looking for professional help does not mean you lack faith; sometimes it proves your steps of faith. Just remember that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion on the day of Jesus Christ. I am praying that you will be able to discern God’s guidance, and in all these you will experience Him and His words in your lives.

These are a few verses from the Bible that I hope could help you to feel God’s love, to trust in Him again, and let Him work in you: