“Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad” (Prov. 12:25, ESV).
Reflection
In Proverbs 12:25, Solomon gives a concrete picture of how the abstract concept of anxiety affects us. The first image that popped into my mind when reading these words was a pharmaceutical commercial for Spiriva, a medicine used to treat certain respiratory problems. That commercial featured an elephant sitting on a man’s chest, weighing him down and making it impossible to breathe. Solomon depicts anxiety just like that elephant weighing down heavily upon one’s chest and making it difficult to live life. Anxiety makes us think the wrong thoughts, feel the wrong emotions, and perform the wrong actions. Truly, anxiety is a burden that weighs down the heart.
Yet the biblical witness is clear that God did not design humans for a life of anxiety. After all, anxiety is ultimately the opposite of faithful trust in God. Anxiety is worry about the unknown future while faith is “trusting the unknown future to the known God,” as Corrie Ten Boom famously put it.[1] Humans were designed to trust God, but, in Adam, we all rebelled, thereby becoming estranged from our Creator. This alienation is evident in the Garden after our first parents ate the forbidden fruit: “They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden” (Gen. 3:8). Their reason for hiding? They were afraid of having their sin exposed to the Lord (Gen. 3:10).
Sinful human beings have anxiety about being in the presence of God. Something in the human constitution, what Paul calls “the law . . . written on their hearts,” condemns us before God (Rom. 12:14–15). Humans know, however deeply they bury the knowledge, that they are at odds with their Creator, and they know that they are deserving of judgment. The Law of God that comes in written form simply shatters the ability of humans to suppress the law written on our hearts. The Law declares definitively that we are not living in a manner pleasing to God, and a judgment is coming because of it (Heb. 9:27). Standing before a holy God in judgement strikes the dread of condemnation into the very center of our being (and rightly so) because we are faced with the prospect of eternal punishment, eternal separation from the God Who fashioned us for Himself.
All human beings have this looming anxiety about meeting God in the judgment. Some deal with it by running away from Him. Some deal with it by embracing a life of legalism, anxiously toiling that they might earn a right standing before the Judge.
Anxiety in the relationship between God and man is not the only form of anxiety that meets humans on this side of the Fall, though. Because of our sin in Adam, humans deal with struggles like relational conflict, difficulty working, financial woes, pain, disease, and, you guessed it, death. How much of our anxiety is born from the prospect of facing one or more of these?
But there is good news that makes the heart glad today. There is a good word that lifts the elephant off the chest. God Himself spoke this good word for the first time when He promised that the Seed of the woman would crush the head of that old serpent who is the devil (Gen. 3:15). God promised that the Seed of the woman would do all that Adam had left undone before the Fall and would undo all that Adam brought about by the Fall. That Seed is, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ by Whom God speaks a good word of grace, healing, and reconciliation.
To those who, in their anxiety, run from God, Jesus Christ invites us to stand fully forgiven and at peace with our Father through His righteous life, atoning death, victorious resurrection, and priestly intercession. To those who anxiously toil to earn a right standing before God like Adam and Eve did when they “sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths” (Gen. 3:7), Jesus Christ invites us to cease from all our anxious toil and trust in His finished work. Such was foreshadowed to our first parents when God graciously “made for Adam and his wife garments of skins and clothed them” (Gen. 3:21). Our first parents could rest easy in the knowledge that these garments, divinely given, far surpassed the tattered leaves they had sewn together for themselves. Likewise, God has not left us to be clothed in the “filthy rags” of our righteousness (Isa. 64:6); rather, He clothes us in the shining white robes of Christ’s own righteousness.
Application
What news could lighten the heart more than this? What words are sweeter than Jesus’ own: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Mt. 11:28)? We can be freed from the ultimate anxiety of judgment by faith in Jesus Christ.
But, of course, we know that anxiety is a persistent reality in the unglorified state. As believers, we live as members of the already-here-but-not-yet-consummated Kingdom of God. The Kingdom has entered the world through Jesus Christ, and we have been invited to join it. Yet we pray that Kingdom would continue to come for we know that it is not fully realized on this earth as it will be when Christ returns. The world is not now as it should be. We still deal with relational conflict. We still experience pain, hurt, loss, disease, and financial woes. We still reckon with the reality of mortality, first for others and then for ourselves. And because these things are a reality, anxiety is still a reality as well. We still have worries and fears, and, for that reason, we need continually to hear a good word to overcome them.
We need to hear a good word; we need to hear the good word of the gospel again and again. Perhaps you are reading this homily, and you have sinned in such a way that you question whether you are a child of God, whether you have gone beyond God’s forgiveness. Hear this good word: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:8). You need to hear that, though we have sinned, “we have an advocate with God the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins and not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 Jn. 2:1–2).
Maybe you have anxiety about health concerns and need to hear the blessed promise that Jesus gave to Lazarus’ family: “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (Jn. 11:4). Lazarus’ illness did, in fact, lead to death; but Jesus raised him from the grave, proving that even disease and death do not have the final word over Jesus’ disciples.
Maybe you have anxiety about the future and just need to hear that our compassionate Father is in control (e.g., Mt. 6:25–34). He holds the future in His hands. He sees farther than we can see. He knows more than we can know. And He has greater plans than our eyes can see, than our ears can hear, than our hearts can imagine (1 Cor. 2:9). The surest confirmation of this was given when He raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. We need to hear this good word that God has spoken to us in Christ Jesus time and time again.
Not only do we need to hear it, however. We also need to share it with others, that they too might overcome anxiety. God uses people like you and me to communicate with others. There is a whole world of heavy-hearted people who need to be made glad by a good word, and ultimately by the good Word Who is Jesus Christ. Perhaps there is an anxious unbeliever in your life with whom you might share the peace that comes through knowing Jesus. I can assure you that there are anxious people in your local church who especially need to hear the good word of the gospel to gladden their hearts. God uses our brothers and sisters in Christ to encourage us, and He wants to use us to encourage our brothers and sisters. Maybe you can even send an encouraging text message right now as you have reached the end of this article. Perhaps your words will prove to be “sweet to the soul and healing to the bones” (Prov. 16:24) by lifting the elephant of anxiety from off another’s chest.
[1] Corrie Ten Boom, Each New Day (Minneapolis, MN: World Wide Publications, 1977), 54.
June 22, 2023
A must read. Very good and so true!