Anxiety – Proverbs 12:25

Is it possible you could have an anxiety disorder and not know it?  Take a self-test.  Don’t know how to recognize anxiety in others?  Watch this video on recognizing anxiety in someone’s voice.  Can you read anxiety in someone’s face.  Probably, but here’s some research on it.  Quite aware of your own anxiety?  Maybe someone else can help.

Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down,

but a good word makes him glad. (Proverbs 12:25, ESV)

Jesus taught us not to be anxious about our lives and that being anxious could not add anything positive to our lives anyway (Matthew 6:25-34).  We often think about anxiety from the personal standpoint of dealing with it ourselves before God, trusting Him to provide our needs, praying so that we need not carry the burden of anxiety ourselves (Philippians 4:6,7).

But here the sage person is talking about the impact anxiety has on us, weighing us down, making us feel like we’re dragging all our problems around with us, and how someone else can lighten our hearts with an apt word.  What could someone say that would release us from anxiety?

• I’ll take care of your needs
• I’m here with you to help you in any way I can
• I’ve been weighed down with worry also and here’s what helped me
• You’re going to be okay because…
• Let’s bear this load together

Do you know someone slogging around in anxiety?  Are you sensitive enough to see it whether they display their worry or not?  Are you willing to do something about it?  Love your neighbor as yourself.  What would help you in such times?

Holy Spirit, make me sensitive to those who are weighed down with anxiety and give me a way to make them glad.