Anxiety is one of the number one diseases that plague the wealthiest people on the planet. It’s irony at its best. The people with basics of life taken care of with all but certainty are the people who find their lives filled with life ending anxiety. We hoard up fears and worries in the same way we hoard up debt, money and material goods. In other areas of the world people live day by day, gathering water and food, wondering about shelter and medical diseases. Although I’m thankful I don’t live like that, I also think our individualistic and materialistic way of life has prevented us from a perspective that day to day living can give.

Let’s be honest, real honest. If you are online reading this blog post, you probably take water, bread, and your computer/phone for granted. You are more focused on the troubles that could come some day in the future related to investments, insurance policies and whether or not you can retire on time. You are worried about how to pay for your child’s college or whether or not you will be able to keep up with your $$$ car payment or upgrade your expensive phone. You are mindful of the violence everywhere, crazy acts of natural disaster, economic disasters and very obscure medical problems and are then consumed by what you can do to protect, insure, and guard you and your stuff from disaster. Your fear and anxiety lead you to buy what the world sales as “Security.” A promised safety in money, control, firearms, insurance etc. that leaves you just like the rest of our culture, worried and anxious. The realty is according to Matt 6:21: “Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.” Those with the most treasure have the most to be anxious and worried about, right?

I am not saying throw all of these things out of your life, however, I want you to become mentally aware that they all have a portion of your heart. Scriptures tell us to give our heart, our cares, our worries our anxiety over to God. I Peter 5:7, “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” Philippians 4:6, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Matthew 6:25–27, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”

But if money and possessions have our heart then how do we give our heart over?

Step 1 – Realize that you came into this world with nothing and you will leave the same way. Everything belongs to God. It is all his and his to worry about.

Step 2 – Practice giving back to God what He has loaned to you. If you don’t give anything to God then your heart, which is controlled by “your treasure” has little chance of being given over to him.

Step 3 – Give even more and see your anxiety drop as the eyes of your heart change their focus.