Anxiety Muddles the Mind

This from my devotional:

Text: Job 38:1-2

I find that the more earnest and sensitive a believer is, the more likely he or she is to be hung up somewhere about guidance. Why is this? we ask. The answer does not seem to be far to seek. The source of anxiety is threefold: a desire for guidance, uncertainty of about how to get it, and fear of the consequences of not getting it. Such anxiety has an unhappy way of escalating. Anxious people get allured by any and every of certainty that offers itself, no matter how irrational; they become vulnerable to strange influences and do zany things. Over the past 150 year there was been a most unhelpful buildup of tension to a point where it muddles minds, darkens counsel, and obstructs maturity in a way that is Spirit-quenching, and scandalous.

This past year I can really identify with this and totally agree. Anxiety can be crippling and it can overwhelm you to the extent that it leads to full blown fear. Unbridled fear can make you do anything in an attempt to eliminate the said fear. The worst of times is when the fear will not dissipate. The redeeming factor is the God of this Universe who is sovereign in all things and the true friends within the body of Christ that can and will come to the aid of those who are suffering.