The new year, a new beginning, a clean slate. As if all that 2020 brought is just gone and we can move on. Wouldn’t that be great. If 2020 brought us anything, it surely brought anxiety. A year full of unknowns produces anxiety at some level for us all. Some it hit hard, others barely felt it, but it was there – the big WHAT IF……..

What do we do with anxiety? How do we handle our own anxiety and help others process theirs? Me? I lead a couple of Bible studies on the subject. My only way to combat life’s issues is to see what the word of God says about it. The studies were good. I learned a lot. I hope those who joined me in the journey did, too.

And with the start of 2021 I honestly didn’t feel the heavy pull of anxiety that I had last year. It wasn’t even really something I had thought of until I started reading a book about prayer. It’s a challenge really to up your prayer life, stop praying the polite Christian prayers, ‘Lord bless our day, our food, our thoughts, be with us in all ways….’ start praying things like ‘not my will but your will.’ It’s a good book thus far.

Then I read this: ‘Search me, God and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.’ Psalm 139:23-24

It seemed to me to be inviting God to know my anxious thoughts. Inviting God to search them out and reveal them to me for what they are – sin, lack of faith, disconnected from truth. Ouch and wow all at the same time.

When I think of anxiety, verses like 1 Peter 5:7 “cast your anxieties on the Lord”, and Philippians 4:6-8 “be anxious for nothing but in all things pray” jump into my head. But never the idea of letting God examine my heart. More than examine, search it completely.

I am not down-playing anxiety at all. I have experienced it, been controlled by it, and even medicated for it. It’s no joke! And if you don’t know it through experience, then you don’t know. But that being said, my heart is wondering, my brain is swirling. Could there be something to inviting God into knowing, searching, and leading me through my anxiety?

I don’t have answers right now. I just know God is stirring something deep in me. Challenging me, maybe, to trust Him with knowing my anxious thoughts. Knowing deep parts of me I keep hidden from everyone – even myself at times. Maybe He is wanting to lead me to new freedoms that can only be found in the testing of God in my life. One thing I do know. This is where this year starts for me. Where it goes and how it ends I do not know. But I will start with this: God search me and know my heart.

Will you join me on this journey? Ask God to search you and know you. The you He knows may be different than the you that you know. But to be known by God is a good thing. To get deeply personal with God is a great thing. And being led by God, well, it can only lead to personal freedom with Him.

So let’s give it a try. I mean let’s be honest. It can’t be worse than last year, right? And maybe, no probably, no it will be, the best year yet!