Anxiety and Depression

Porn always leads to some emotions (like anxiety) being out of whack. A combination of going to war with lust and sin always leads to a sharp decrease in anxiety. So... once you are convinced that getting the lust out will be a massive help to anxiety – you will have increased motivation to quit.

King Saul was God's choice to lead Israel. Then he opened himself to anxiety by trying to kill David (who was in line for the throne). That sin eventually caused Saul to enter a deep depression. Saul's actions led to David's anxiety because someone was trying to kill him!

But David overcame and you can also. David was a man who dug into the Word of God. You can attack anxiety just like he would by meditating on verses about the subject.

Set an alarm so that you can read one of these verses every hour. I think it is wise to have a habit of reading either one of these verses every hour or one of the verses for quitting every hour. Continue with this habit until you have a bunch of these verses memorized. A second strategy would be to pray over anxiety verses.

David was devoted to scripture morning, noon and night. When it was all said and done he became a man of great courage.

Pray: “Father, take away this spirit of fear, and fill me with a Spirit of great courage.”

lotanner.com had some great ideas for prayer

“Lord, fill me with Your peace.

Help me to see Your hand in my situation.

God, you're good and faithful. I choose to meditate on those things.

I am not alone. Thank you, Lord, for being here with me.”

Finally, 1 John 4:18 says: “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear.”

We can't pray too much to be filled with love. It has many benefits. When you combine that with the verses for fighting anxiety, you have a winner.

 

To fight anxiety and depression we need to live “in today.” A lot of bad things happened to all of us in the past. Consider praying:

“Father, help me to forget the past, and help me to do Your will and enjoy Your presence today.”

Second, we can't spend time worrying about tomorrow. Consider praying:

“Father, Your Word says: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” Help me to focus on this verse. Help me not to worry.”

I wrote an article called Free Your Mind last week. In it, I suggested a number of things to think about instead of lust. Today I am suggesting adding anxiety and or depression to the sentence about thoughts (underlined). Here is the reworded paragraph:

“Wear a rubber band on your wrist and try these six ideas about what to say. Every time you have a lustful/anxious, or negative thought about the past, snap it and say: #1 “Father, Your ways are best.” On your next negative thought Pray: “Father, show me what to think about.” Thought #3 Say: I believe that pure thoughts will lead to a great life. #4 Pray: “Jesus, I thank you for the cross.” #5: Say three things you can give God thanks for. # 6 Pray: “Father, take away this spirit of lust/depression/anxiety and fill me with your love. #7 Quote Scripture.

Every time you have a lustful/anxious, or negative thought about the future, snap it and go through the list again.”

Today, consider writing a few of your own Christian ideas about what to think about. Then add what you should be thinking about to live “for today.” Whenever you have a negative thought “snap it” and think about what is important today, or something to think about from the Free Your Mind article, or from your list.

The fantastic goal is to develop the habit of avoiding thinking compulsively about the past or worrying compulsively about the future. Instead, compulsively, work on solving these two problems Jesus' way.