A.K.A., The Wages Of Stress Is Death

John 12:25 (GWV) Those who love their lives will destroy them, and those who hate their lives in this world will guard them for everlasting life.

This, when properly understood, is the cure for anxiety. Because anxiety is not a primary emotion, it is a compound one; formed out of two other feelings: fear, and loss of control.

It is normal to be afraid of death; every person who has ever lived has feared to die. But that alone does not cause anxiety. Anxiety comes when you fear to die and have no control over if, when, and how you die.

A voluntary soldier can walk onto a battlefield afraid to die, but not anxious; he can be utterly calm and at peace because he chose to die for his country. The peace he feels is because he has accepted his fate and therefore he can face it with dignity.

The same soldier conscripted into the army will be anxious and panicky because he is afraid to die and can’t see any way not to do it anyway. So the anxiety he feels is him desperately looking for a way out, even though there probably isn’t one.

If he goes forward, the enemy will probably shoot him. If he turns back from the ranks, his own troops will shoot him. He can’t fly or hide, he can’t go left or right… but still his mind will be racing, trying to solve an impossible problem which inevitably makes him more likely to die.

The fact is, he might live if he attacks the enemy confidently, with full focus and a mind at peace. But he probably won’t survive if he doesn’t get his head in the game. And so the anxiety about death makes death more likely.

Just as anxiety about your girlfriend leaving you makes her more likely to want to leave, even if she wasn’t planning on it before. Just as fear of missing a field goal makes you far more likely to choke and miss that same field goal.

Because as long as you’re focusing on what’s at stake, worrying about what might happen if you miss, or looking for another way out… you’re not focused on what’s in front of you, which is in every case your best chance of success.

CONTROL OR SURRENDER

So anxiety is the result of confronting a future you refuse to accept, but which you also cannot see any way of changing. You’re hurtling towards a destiny you dread, and someone else is at the wheel. And there are only two possible ways to fix this – either take control, or accept your fate.

By nature, we try to take control at any cost, even if the last-ditch attempt to take control kills us. Which is why, surprisingly often, passengers on airplanes panic and try to open the door mid-flight.

This, if possible (fortunately, it usually isn’t) would mean certain death for them and a lot of other people too, but at least they would have had control, they would have been trying SOMETHING.

Like a cornered animal – which is exactly what they are – they lash out in any direction to escape. Because when you are afraid, and feel powerless, you will seek to regain control at absolutely any cost.

Even if the cost of the “solution” (depressurization of an airplane, certain death) is higher than the actual cost of the problem that they fear (a plane crash, which, often, at least some people survive). Not to mention the plane only might crash, while opening the door will kill them.

And not being able to control these fears, a person who is afraid of drowning will panic, thrash about, and actually drown. Because every lifeguard knows – people rarely die from drowning. They die from panicking and then they drown.

So if you really want to survive when you’re drowning, accept that you might drown, relax, hold your breath, and focus on not drowning, not on your fear of drowning.

If you’re afraid your loved one is going to leave you, accept that they might. Then relax, and focus on being someone they don’t WANT to leave, rather than being a whiny needy man-child focusing only on your fear of abandonment.

If you’re afraid of dying in war, and you can’t realistically get out of it, accept that you might die and then do your best to kill so many of them that there aren’t any left to kill you. (I don’t condone war for true Christians, but if you’re going to play the game, play to win – and that means playing without fear).

Yes, you may die in any of these situations. You could die while reading this article. But your best chance of survival is always to accept that you might die… and then assume you will live and plan accordingly, making the best choices you can to prolong your life and make it better.

Matthew 6:31-33 Therefore don’t be anxious, saying, ‘What will we eat?’, ‘What will we drink?’ or, ‘With what will we be clothed?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first God’s Kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well.

Jesus recommends putting the kingdom of God first as the best cure to anxiety, and of course it is. Valuing becoming a good person above remaining a living person (Hebrews 11:35), and using what life you do have left to learn how to become the person God wants you to be, is by far the most rewarding way to cure your anxiety.

But really, caring about anything more than your life will do. The soldier who volunteers to fight to defend his family has no anxiety about death because he values the lives of his sisters more than his own.

A man who bravely chooses death before dishonor values his name, and the name of his family, more than his life. Anywhere and everywhere that you see someone act bravely, without anxiety, in the face of fear, it is because he has put the value of his life lower than whatever he is fighting for.

So as I said, by far the best thing to value more than your life is learning about the kingdom of God, and changing yourself to be like Him. But purely for the sake of curing anxiety, anything you believe in will help.

John 12:25 (GWV) Those who love their lives will destroy them, and those who hate their lives in this world will guard them for everlasting life.

So if you really want to live forever… stop caring about your survival. Care more about something, anything, else. Because putting that first is the only way to save your pathetic life.

And yes, I do know from personal experience that what I’m telling you isn’t easy, but it IS THE ANSWER. And I’m going to spend the rest of this article showing you exactly how to put it into practice, and why you have this problem in the first place.

IMPROBABLE RISKS

The curious thing about anxiety is that it is often triggered by ridiculously improbable things. Most phobias and anxieties are of things that, even if they did happen, probably wouldn’t even be that bad. You aren’t that likely to die of a spider bite, for instance; even without treatment, most give you, at worst, some painful swelling.

So why are people so terrified of them, when there are much more realistic things to be afraid of? What gives these low-risk phobias such power over people – even more power than real risks of death?

One word: control.

With even the most basic of precautions, you’re far more likely to die of a drive-by shooting while shopping than to die falling off a cliff while rock climbing. Why then are you going to be a hundred times more panicky on the mountain than in the produce section?

Because you feel more in control in the grocery store. If someone were to come shoot up the place you could run, hide, do something. You might die, but you’d die fighting, trying to save yourself.

Rock climbing is terrifying because if the rope snaps – however unlikely – you have no options on the way down. It’s scary because if the person on the ground holding the rope lets go, even for a second, there’s nothing you can do.

Yes, you trust that person, and yes the rope looks strong; yes, it’s a one in a million chance against anything bad happening, but if you hit that negative lottery, it’s over, period. Whereas if something bad happens in the grocery store, in all likelihood you’ll be able to try something. And even if that fails you’ll be in control of your destiny. Or at least, feel like you are. And for anxiety, that’s all that’s important.

What makes sharks so terrifying is that you can’t see them coming. You’re floating on the surface of a giant shark buffet, and if your number comes up, it’ll be over before you feel anything. You are utterly without control.

Did you know that dogs kill 30,000 humans a year, while sharks kill… about five? So why not have anxiety about every dog you see? Because you have some control. Land is your native environment – you can run. In water, you can’t – at least, not fast enough to have any hope of outrunning a predator.

Whereas you can see a dog coming, probably, and fight back. With a shark you’re hopelessly outmatched and you know it. So in every case, anxiety is tied to a lack of control over your fate, or the fate of someone vital to your life as you know it.

Statistically an airplane is one of the safest places to be at any given time – you are ONE HUNDRED TIMES more likely to die in a car than in a plane. Yet far more people fear air travel than car travel. What’s the difference? Because you are DRIVING the car.

And even if you’re a passenger, there’s a sense that, in a crisis, you could grab the wheel; leap from the car; huddle into a ball and survive. You’re in your native environment, land, and instinctively know there are always some options. Even if you die, it will be fighting on your terms in some sort of control.

When you’re in a plane, however, you are quite literally out of your element. You are completely at the mercy of a captain you don’t know and 6 miles above solid ground. So if something does happen – as unlikely as it might be – you would have no options whatsoever.

And that is truly terrifying.

LOW-LEVEL AVOIDANCE

Spiders kill – get this – about three people a year. Worldwide. So why do people fear spiders? Because they’re small. Hard to identify, hard to see coming, and they can get to you while you’re sleeping and you have NO CONTROL over it!

Which is why a lot of people, even those without proper arachnophobia, won’t even touch a spider they are assured is harmless because why take a chance? You can’t be 100% sure, so it’s better to run from it just in case.

If you pressure them, they say things like “I could touch if it I had to, but I don’t want to”. And that is usually true, they could – but why deny yourself a perfectly reasonable experience with almost no risk? Left unchecked, this sort of low-level fear causes avoidance of extremely low-risk activities, and winds up boxing you into a very small and boring box of low-level terror.

God put us on this Earth to learn to make good judgments. And avoiding something based on a 1 in a million chance “just in case” isn’t a good judgment. Nor is lying to yourself and saying “I just don’t want to”, when really you are afraid to.

That’s not a judgment based on realistic risk, nor an honest assessment of your true feelings; it’s a self-deception made out of fear, and paranoia, and God wouldn’t approve. In fact, acting that way is one of the curses God pronounced:

Leviticus 26:36 As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies: and the sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword; and they will fall when no one pursues.

Thus literally, this faintness of heart – anxiety – causes them to die when no one is even chasing them.

Proverbs 28:1 The wicked flee when no one pursues; but the righteous are as bold as a lion.

Statistically – and this is a fact – you are more likely to die from a vending machine tipping over on you than a shark attack. So how can you justify fearing to swim at the beach? You’re literally fleeing a shark who isn’t even pursuing you. A shark who probably isn’t even there!

A wild bird, caught in your house, literally has a heart attack and dies as you gently try to help it get out because it’s afraid you might kill it. A cat has such a strong fear of you that it starves rather than take food from your hand. Their zeal to avoid a risk that might happen leads them to take an action that actually does kill them.

Likewise, a person who is afraid his girlfriend will leave him acts so insecure and needy that he causes her to leave him (yes, that was me, but also everybody at least once). A person who is afraid they’ll never be loved builds such emotional walls that they cannot be loved.

And so literally every one of us has fallen into the trap of Job; that which we greatly fear (death, loneliness, etc.), we invariably cause to happen BY OUR FEAR of it.

Job 3:25 (NKJV) For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, And what I dreaded has happened to me.

THE RIGHT ANSWER

So once again, the answer to all of these things is not to rage and curse and try to regain control at any cost. That doesn’t work anyway and everyone knows it, even if they forget when it matters most.

No, the only correct answer when confronted with a dreaded fate which you can’t change… is to accept it. Work to find a way out, calmly and rationally, if there is one. But if there isn’t… then accept that you don’t have the power to change it. Because no one really does.

Ecclesiastes 8:8 (WEB) There is no man who has power over the spirit to contain the spirit; neither does he have power over the day of death…

As the old maxim goes, a brave man dies only once. A coward dies a thousand times. Job, at first, wisely accepted his fate “the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD”(Job 1:21).

But then the anxiety found a thread to tug on – what if God hadn’t forgiven him? What if this was all a misunderstanding! He wanted to say to God, “Do not condemn me. Show me why you contend with me” (Job 10:2).

When all he really needed to do was wait on the Lord, because he had done all he could do; he did nothing wrong until he sinned with his lips by being anxious about the fairness of God’s judgments. And then spent 30 chapters desperately searching for an argument that would convince God of something He already knew!

Isaiah 26:3 (WEB) You will keep whoever’s mind is steadfast in perfect peace, because he trusts in you.

Job’s mind – like the arachnophobe or the insecure boyfriend – was most definitely not in perfect peace. And therefore, the very thing he feared, the thing God would have prevented had he trusted God to do so, was allowed to come upon him. Because he feared it.

1 John 4:18 (WEB) There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has punishment. He who fears is not made perfect in love.

Because fear has punishment. And I don’t mean in the God’ll getcha kinda way. Because about 5 million people die of causes directly related to anxiety yearly. Directly. Because fear is its own punishment. Far more people die from the fear of the thing they fear, than from the thing itself.

Hebrews 2:14-15 (WEB) Since then the children have shared in flesh and blood, he also himself in the same way partook of the same, that through death he might bring to nothing him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver all of them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

Anxiety is, in every case, a form of bondage. Because you love your life too much, you HAVE to keep it at any cost. You’re bound to save it, no matter what. Only… you can’t guarantee that. No one can. Which you already knew – but you have to try, right? No, actually, you don’t.

You can and should make good choices about diet and exercise but you can’t MAKE SURE you don’t get hit by a stray bullet from six blocks away, nor make certain you’re not patient zero for the next plague. And trying to do so will kill you anyway.

For it is the fear of death which keeps us in bondage to that same death. Because worrying about how to avoid every imaginable threat to your life or happiness carries such a high emotional cost that just the effort will kill you, sooner or later.

Maybe not as dramatically as the passenger who tried to open the airplane door, but just as certainly. Because even the stress of avoiding the danger will kill you. In fact… it’s what kills everyone.

UNNATURAL CAUSES

Doctors know that aging is not natural. There is no particular reason why people die. Our bodies are designed in such a way that they have an infinite supply of replaceable parts. Cells are meant to wear out, and be replaced with brand new ones indefinitely.

But for that to happen, when cells divide they must create a perfect copy of the DNA within them; and unfortunately, the copy is sometimes imperfect; and so we die because, in effect, we are xeroxing a xerox of a xerox – and as with a xerox, we have about 50-60 copies before the final result is unreadable and the cell becomes unviable. And then we die.

But what if that didn’t happen? Because we can copy a copy of a copy of an email millions of times with no degradation; what if our cells copied perfectly, every time? We would be immortal. Killable, to be sure – but not by “natural causes”, which as you’re about to see, are in fact, quite unnatural.

Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Until this happened, Adam could not age. He could not die. Individual cells would die, but his body would continue forever. And his sin changed that – but not in the magical way you probably thought, by some divine curse that made his cells age. No, the curse was indirect:

Genesis 3:17-19 (WEB) To Adam he said… cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will yield thorns and thistles to you; and you will eat the herb of the field. By the sweat of your face will you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Notice exactly what God said; Adam was not cursed; the devil was cursed, but not Adam! (verse 14). God never once told Adam “you are cursed”, or “you will now start to age”. What He said was “the ground is cursed because of you”. And because of that curse, Adam would have a life of hard work, sweat, fighting thorns and thistles until THAT killed him!

See, before, there was a garden that grew abundantly. There was good weather, no wild animals, and absolutely nothing to fear. And while Adam was supposed to dress and keep that garden, it would have been easy, enjoyable work, just as today sometimes rich people go out and garden for fun.

Because it is easy and fun… when your life doesn’t depend on it. Speaking as someone whose life has depended on it in the past, it is a highly stressful and very unfun job when it does. So Adam’s original gardening job would have been zero stress. The curse meant that it would now be hard and miserable and most importantly… stressful.

Now Adam would have to work, or else fear hunger; and along with that, process a host of other fears about weather and pests, diseases and predators. And it was that stress, and that anxiety for his life… that fear of death… it is THAT which ultimately killed him.

THE WAGES OF STRESS

Any time your body is stressed emotionally or physically, the normal processes of digestion, healing, and elimination are suspended. This is because when you’re being chased by a bear, it’s more important to run a little faster than it is to make good poo-poo tomorrow.

It’s also, in that moment, far more important to survive the next five minutes than it is to copy a cell correctly. And when there’s an actual bear chasing you, that’s important. But what happens when you never actually get away from the bear?

What happens if he never quite catches you… but you also never actually lose him? You’d live in a state of stress forever, and never get a chance to properly repair the cells you sloppily patched up last time because you were “in a hurry”.

Which, in turn, means the next cells will be even worse, because you’re even farther behind now. Meanwhile the original stress never stopped – but now you have that stress, plus a failing body caused by that stress. And now, in addition, the worry caused by the stress of a failing body!

And this is the life of nearly every human since Adam.

Because all aging is caused by failures of the genes to replicate cells perfectly. And that happens because you’re too busy worrying about bears, hunger, poverty, loneliness – in short, surviving the near future – for your spirit to give its full attention to creating new cells, to create a long-term future for the whole body.

And so if you have an urgent need to heal a wound or replace a dead cell, your body will do so, even if you’re stressed… but how good of a job do you suppose it will do if you’re also worrying about how to pay the rent or what some people said behind your back?

And so when you, as everyone does, spend most of your life stressing about things that you can’t control and, more often than not, don’t really matter… can you really blame your spirit for failing to create a perfect copy of your cell?

For “falling short”, or sinning, against the original cell God gave it?

Because we all know that the wages of sin is death. And failing to copy cells perfectly is a sin – and leads directly to death. And since that failure is caused by stress, we can fairly say that the wages of stress is death.

Or simply, that stress is sin. Which is why Jesus said…

John 12:25 (GWV) Those who love their lives will destroy them, and those who hate their lives in this world will guard them for everlasting life.

Because it is the love of this life at any cost which causes those failures in replication; and the only way to avoid that is to love some things more than your life.

THE SOLUTION

From nearly the time we’re born, we are put under stress; stress to sit up and eat right and go to school and take tests and get a good job and get married and a mortgage and kids and jobs and economy and doctors and more doctors and more doctors and then finally death. Throughout all of this, we never escaped the bear because the bear is death, and you cannot outrun it.

Because none of us can beat death. Jesus did, because He never let the bear notice Him in the first place. But we not only poked the bear by sinning, we gave him a huge head start before we even started running.

So at this point, we cannot beat death. But we can rob death of its power. And that power is derived entirely from our fear of it. So the only way to beat death… is not to fear it in the first place. Because it is the fear of death which causes death.

The plane passenger loved their life too much. And as a result, had a flight attendant not intervened, they would certainly have lost it. So if you don’t want to fall into that same trap… you have to do the same thing she should have done:

Matthew 6:25-34 (WEB) Therefore, I tell you, don’t be anxious for your life: what you will eat, or what you will drink; nor yet for your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
See the birds of the sky, that they don’t sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. Your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you of much more value than they?
Which of you, by being anxious, can add one moment to his lifespan?
Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don’t toil, neither do they spin,
yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of these.
But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today exists, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, won’t he much more clothe you, you of little faith?
Therefore don’t be anxious, saying, ‘What will we eat?’, ‘What will we drink?’ or, ‘With what will we be clothed?’
For the Gentiles seek after all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
But seek first God’s Kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well.
Therefore don’t be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Each day’s own evil is sufficient.

WHY CAN’T YOU DO THAT?

This all makes sense. But it’s not that easy. And you can’t really fix it until you realize the source of your anxiety. Why, as irrational as it is, are you afraid of a shark attack? You know you only have a 1 in 3.75 million chance of being killed by a shark. Those are really safe odds.

For comparison, there is – depending on the exact lottery – about a 1 in 300 million chance of winning the lottery. Note the absence of a decimal point – that’s a HUNDRED TIMES less likely. My point? People still DO win the lottery, odds or no odds.

If you divide our life up into events that might end badly, there are millions of separate events. Every time a car passes you, or a plane flies over your house, or you swallow a bite of food, you have a very tiny chance of dying. But you play the game so often – millions, billions of times – that sooner or later you’re going to hit the negative jackpot.

And anxiety happens because, for all of us, at least once in our lives, we hit that one in a million chance and the unthinkable, the ridiculously improbable, happened. Probably more than one such thing. So we know that a shark attack can also happen.

The odds of getting struck by lightning in your lifetime is 1 in 15,300. Only guess what? I’ve been struck by lightning. Got knocked out and everything. So bad stuff happens, and even when the odds say a particular thing is unlikely… something bad WILL happen to you sooner or later.

Ecclesiastes 9:11 I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all.

And most likely, already has happened to you or you wouldn’t be anxious. You almost drowned, you were raped, you were arrested for a crime you didn’t commit, your wife cheated on you, you got stabbed – and if by some freak chance it hasn’t, it certainly has almost happened.

And so when you tell your heart “look, the spider won’t hurt us, look at the odds” it says “OH YEAH?? That’s what you said about lightning! And I trusted you to protect us and you were wrong!!”

And since your heart feels you failed to protect it with your fancy probabilities and math, the only way to feel safe is to never do anything like that ever again. Not to trust your life to the 999,999 times out of a million that you’ll be safe, and instead avoid ANY risk at all.

Better to say “I just don’t like swimming”, than take the tiny risk it represents because you’ve seen those odds beaten before. Because one in 15,300 people DO get struck by lightning, and I was that person.

I comfort myself that only one in 153,000 die from a lightning strike, and I was not one of those people. But still, I beat the odds already, in a bad way. So what’s to say I won’t beat them with sharks, falling coconuts, or wasp bites? Absolutely nothing.

And I have to find a way to be OK with that because there is nothing anyone can do about it.

Least of all a panicked animal trying to run when no one is even chasing it.

RUSSIAN ROULETTE

What is the point of Russian Roulette? Why would someone take a revolver with six slots, put a bullet in one chamber, and put it to their heads and pull the trigger? I’m seriously asking; what’s the point?

Russian Roulette is an extreme example of a reckless and idiotic wagering against your luck, one where if you survive, you’re exactly where you started – alive – and if you die, you’re, well, dead. So why would anyone, ever, play it?

I hear you saying, “the point is to kill yourself”; but if that’s the point, why have empty slots in the gun?

I hear you saying, “to prove you can beat the odds”; but if that’s the point, Vegas offers far less deadly ways to do so.

Again I hear you saying “the point of the game is to live”; but if that’s the goal, a far better way to live is simply not to play the game at all!

So again… why would people do it? Well, it’s generally played in groups. So the point of the game is to prove you have the courage to pull the trigger. Thus, the point of the game is to be brave.

Which means when it’s your turn, if you put the gun to your head, whimpering and begging God not to let you die, hesitating and puking, weeping and wetting yourself… even if you do, eventually, pull the trigger… you proved that you were not, in fact, brave and therefore lost, even if you survived.

The outcome of the game is decided before the gun is ever placed to your head. No amount of begging, praying, or whimpering will change the outcome; the bullet is either in the chamber, or it isn’t. If you pull the trigger, you either live, or die, based on a die that was rolled minutes earlier.

So if you’re going to play – and you really, really shouldn’t – but if you are going to play, the only way to win… is to accept your fate and face your destiny with dignity.

This way, if you live, everyone will know you are courageous. And if you die… well, you won’t care anyway, and you were dead whether you quailed or not, so why not die like a man?

WINNING RUSSIAN ROULETTE

The reason people play the stupid game in the first place is to prove that they are not anxious, not worried about their own death. That their pride is more important than their life. So the only way to win is to man up and pull the trigger.

Visualize your life as a man tied to a chair, forced to spin a revolver and hold it to his own head and pull the trigger. Because everyone, everywhere, all the time, is pulling the trigger with every act they do. You don’t get to not play.

But the one thing we can do, which seems safer, is to play less often. If we do fewer things, it’s safer, right? If you just don’t go swimming, don’t talk to strangers, don’t leave the house, don’t eat solid food – you’re pulling the trigger less.

But by living with the constant fear of an increasing number of things, you’re pulling less triggers… but the stress it causes you makes you more nervous, less focused, and more likely to do something stupid – which means the times you do play, you’re far more likely to choke under the pressure.

Which means, in the long run, by avoiding these small risks, you greatly increase your risk of dying when you do have to play.

Ecclesiastes 8:15 Then I commended mirth, because a man has no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be joyful: for that will accompany him in his labour all the days of his life which God has given him under the sun.

So, take it from the wisest man who ever lived: you’re gonna die. You can either play the game with constant dread, fearful and miserable the whole time, dying a little bit every time you do anything. Or, you accept your inevitable demise and enjoy the satisfying “click” every time you hit an empty chamber.

Which, of course, will be almost every time.

John 16:33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

But it’s not as bleak as that sounds; this sort of fatalistic outlook can cause other mental problems, like depression and apathy. Because you’ll notice I stressed “all you can have on your own”. Bad stuff will happen. You can’t fight the math. You will beat the odds and get hurt.

If you keep playing, the bullet will be in the chamber sooner or later. There is no getting around that – without God’s help. And if you don’t have that… well, then you’re dead anyway. Sharks should be the least of your worries.

Psalms 34:19 (WEB) Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but Yahweh delivers him out of them all.

Because the fact is, life is full of risk. The risk of death is never zero, and cannot even approach zero. And if you make it your goal to get the risk as low as you can, you will kill yourself in the attempt.

YOU’RE PLAYING RIGHT NOW

You’re playing Russian Roulette with your life every minute of every day, whether you like it or not, and if there’s one truth about gambling, it’s that the house always wins. Sooner or later, you will be killed by something. But probably not from swimming, probably not today.

But it’s a lot harder to believe that, harder to trust yourself to a 999,999 out of a million chance, when you’ve just watched Jaws and seen a lot of swimmers lose that lottery – fictional or not, it’s an image it’s hard to get out of your head. So don’t put it there in the first place!

It’s much harder to be calm about your health when you watch Youtube series about freak medical problems. Yes, those happen – but they also make you more nervous about every cough, every ache, when intellectually you know that you probably don’t have African swine fever because you just watched that video, it’s in your head now and hard to get out.

It’s much harder for you to be calm, trusting that there almost certainly isn’t anything out there in the dark that’s going to kill you when you watch Stephen King movies, or any of the host of other dark, sick, and morbid things out there.

And it’s really hard not to be terrified all the time when you watch the worst thing for mental health of all – the news. Because when you think about it, the whole point of the news is to tell you who lost the lottery today.

To show you that people like you got stabbed, robbed, or raped today. And since someone, somewhere, is always losing, this makes the real risk seem vastly larger to you than it really is. Since it’s always happening to someone, that might at any moment it might happen to you.

And that, in turn, makes it much harder to control your anxiety and treat these activities like the low-risk, worth-it activities they really are. Because Jaws or no Jaws, news or no news, even without God’s help, you’re probably going to live through the day.

And that is the most security you will ever have… on your own.

HOW TO LOSE YOUR LIFE

So it’s like Jesus said; the solution is simply to not care about your life, if you want to save it for eternity. This is, of course a paradox. “How can I not care about my life!”, you ask. And it’s hard – hard to take a chance of letting your existence end, since your life is the most important thing in your universe (which is, as I’ve said, your whole problem)

And as long as your life is your problem, you’re going to struggle not to worry about threats to it. So Jesus gave us a simple solution, one which gives you an ironclad argument against your heart’s fearful objections about probabilities and what-ifs.

So how can you not care about your life? Easy: sell it to someone else.

1 Corinthians 1:19-20 (WEB) Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.

You don’t know me, most likely; and so you have no particular reason to care about what happens to me, beyond just generally wishing everyone well. So if you found out I might die, you might feel sad – but you probably wouldn’t feel anxious.

Why? Because I’m not you. My body is not yours. There is no urgent, personal need for you to protect it, or fear its loss. Nor is there any reason you should have power over my situation, hence no reason for you to feel powerless.

And when you belong to God, then you should feel the exact same way about your life.

And if you do… you cannot have anxiety. It’s literally impossible, for you’ve removed both of the ingredients of which anxiety is made: you have nothing to fear, since your body is no longer yours to lose.

And you can’t feel powerless over it, since you gave the power to God. Hence, it would be weird if you felt like you had power over it. Because if God loses “His” body (you), that’s God’s problem to worry about, isn’t it?

If He lets it get hit by an asteroid, or eaten by a shark, or drown in a freak molasses flood (yes, it’s a thing)… well, let Him worry about that, right? I mean it’s His body; you sold it to Him! And if He decides that body would be better off dead…

Matthew 20:15 (WEB) Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?’

THE PARABLE OF THE POUNDS

Obviously, as a caretaker of His body, you should make an effort to take care of it. Feed it well, exercise it, avoid absurd risks that He wouldn’t want you to make. But remember the parable of the pounds; God expects you to make good judgments with His body. But does He expect you to try and eliminate ALL risk?

Luke 19:20-23 (WEB) Another came, saying, ‘Lord, behold, your mina, which I kept laid away in a handkerchief, for I feared you, because you are an exacting man. You take up that which you didn’t lay down, and reap that which you didn’t sow.’ He said to him, ‘Out of your own mouth will I judge you, you wicked servant! You knew that I am an exacting man, taking up that which I didn’t lay down, and reaping that which I didn’t sow. Then why didn’t you deposit my money in the bank, and at my coming, I might have earned interest on it?’

So why didn’t this anxiety-ridden man put money in the bank? Because banks get robbed! And more importantly, as long as he kept it hidden in his house, he was in control over it –and that helped him control his anxiety.

And so the man never made the risk zero; but that non-zero risk was tolerable to him provided he was in control. Just as the risk of travel is tolerable as long as you’re the one driving. Because when your life is on the line, you want to feel in control.

So even though it would have probably been safer in the bank, and would certainly have earned at least some money, he would have lost control of the money, and with it – he believed – control over his life.

But the Lord well knew there was risk in investment, and He fully knew he might lose everything by giving it to these men. Which is why he gave it to THREE different men! To minimize his risk that all of it would be lost!

And so if the money was lost, yes, the Lord would be unhappy, particularly if you wasted it or invested it badly. But if you made a sound investment that, by a freak of fate, went sour… the Lord would have understood.

But one of the three couldn’t take that risk. Or… any risk at all. Because he couldn’t trust the lord, he attempted to make his risk zero. And in so doing, made the only mistake which could have cost him his life (verse 27).

Thus it was literally the fear of death… which caused his death.

As it does for all of us, in every sense of the word. God has literally made an investment in your body, then left you to manage that investment as best you can. He knows you might lose it all on one roll of the dice. But learning which gambles are worth it, and which are not, is why He invested in you in the first place!

Burying your talent – by which I mean, avoiding perfectly reasonable risks out of fear, trying to protect your talent at literally any cost, is the only way to lose your life. The only way to gain it, is to go out there, take risks, live your life and create a return on God’s investment.

And His favorite currency… is faith.

ACCEPTING RISK

The risk of swimming is fairly low, as are the risks of public speaking, asking a girl out, moving to a new country. But it’s not zero. People do die of swimming, and people do die from asking a girl out (especially if she has a boyfriend already), and even from public speaking (as Jesus Himself learned the hard way).

But here’s the thing. If bad things do happen when you take these reasonable risks… well, that’s why Jesus overcame the world. And if you’re seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, if you’re making the Lord your refuge, and setting your love on Him, then even when you hit that negative jackpot… the Lord will cover your losses.

Psalms 91:9-16 Because you have made Yahweh your refuge, and the Most High your dwelling place,
no evil shall happen to you, neither shall any plague come near your dwelling.
For he will put his angels in charge of you, to guard you in all your ways.
They will bear you up in their hands, so that you won’t dash your foot against a stone.
You will tread on the lion and cobra. You will trample the young lion and the serpent underfoot.
“Because he has set his love on me, therefore I will deliver him. I will set him on high, because he has known my name.
He will call on me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him, and honour him.
I will satisfy him with long life, and show him my salvation.”

The risk of touching a spider you’ve been told is non-venomous is pretty minimal, as are bungee jumping and rock climbing. And the rewards of demonstrating faith in God to catch you if you fall, and the benefits of teaching your heart not to faint in the face of the unknown, far outweigh those tiny risks.

As I said before, the point of Russian roulette is to demonstrate bravery, which is akin to faith. Therefore if you must play – and all of us are playing, whether we like it or not – then survival is not the goal. Demonstrating faith in your choice, believing that God has your destiny in hand, that is the only way to win at Russian roulette.

Isaiah 54:14-17 (WEB) In righteousness you shall be established: you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not be afraid; and from terror, for it shall not come near you.
Behold, they may gather together, but not by me: whoever shall gather together against you shall fall because of you.
“Behold, I have created the smith who blows the fire of coals, and brings forth a weapon for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy.
No weapon that is formed against you will prevail; and you will condemn every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of Yahweh, and their righteousness which is of me, says Yahweh.

And… that’s the only way to win at life. God needs to know if you have the courage to accept the risks you take every day, and the risks inherent in being a true Christian, the risks inherent in testifying to the world that it is evil.

God needs to know if you believe those words of His. Yes, you trust God, but do you trust him 100%? Can you take the 999,999 out of 1,000,000 chance that He is distracted, or didn’t mean what He said, or just doesn’t like you?

And thus it is necessary to demonstrate faith, God’s favorite currency, to prove that the talent he invested in you is giving him a return. Whether you demonstrate that by walking in a jungle at night or by talking to strangers, you must face your fears to prove to Him that you can. And not only face them once – but face them until they become so easy, so normalized, they lose all power over you.

Obviously, I’m not talking about taking foolish risks like playing actual Russian Roulette, of course (or even regular roulette, for that matter). You can and should judge these as foolish wastes of your time, with risks that far outweigh the potential gains.

But if you should be able and happy to take reasonable risks like driving a car or going to the beach or holding a spider or traveling to a strange country. These things can end badly, of course – but generally, the revolver has hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands, of empty chambers.

Those are wise bets, and if you should happen to lose anyway, God has promised he’ll be there for you. And if He isn’t… well, you’re dead anyway. Might as well have fun on the way to the grave. And if you can’t take these risks… well, then when He returns and finds his talent in a napkin… you know how that ends.

So having judged that these bets are reasonable – though never zero – can you pull that trigger? God wants to know that, because He knows that if you’re too afraid to touch a snake you know isn’t dangerous, you will be far too afraid to condemn the original serpent, who as we all know packs a powerful venom.

And worse, if you let your anxiety sway you into avoiding touching an actual snake “because I just don’t want to”, “I’ll do it some other time”, God can be certain that you will let that same anxiety cause you to avoid confronting the original serpent and his minions in the world.

Luke 16:10 He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much. He who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.

If you’ll lie to yourself about the snake, you’ll lie to yourself about the serpent. If you won’t pull the trigger on a gun with 100,000 chambers, you certainly won’t pull it when there’s only one empty chamber and hundreds of deadly ones, even if God promised to protect you.

Because if you don’t believe God will protect you from actual scorpions, you definitely won’t believe He can protect you from the heavenly ones.

BE CONTENT

The most painful part of anxiety, and I speak from personal experience, is the constant struggle. A struggle which is manifestly futile and only hurts you. And if you’ve never done it, you can’t imagine the relief you feel when you just lay down your arms and accept the unacceptable.

Jesus’ monologue on the mount told you exactly how to avoid anxiety – stop letting it be your problem. If God feeds birds, He can feed you. If He doesn’t – well, that’ll be too bad. Accept your lot in life, accept your fate, accept God’s judgment.

Acts 5:38-39 (WEB) Now I tell you, withdraw from these men, and leave them alone. For if this counsel or this work is of men, it will be overthrown.
But if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow it, and you would be found even to be fighting against God!

If God is making your life difficult, then fighting back is obviously going to be a waste of time. And if your life belongs to God, and men are making your life difficult, then they will fail. It’s worth noting that this was Saul’s old teacher talking. And a lesson Saul apparently didn’t learn:

Acts 9:1 But Saul, still breathing threats and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest,

Saul was frustrated by the disciples, because he just couldn’t kill them all and catch them all and yet they kept growing. Likewise for all of us, it’s the endless internal dialogue in a vain attempt to try and guarantee something that is intrinsically beyond our power which only guarantees our own suffering.

Acts 26:14 …I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’

When you don’t accept an unavoidable fate, you are kicking against the whip of your master – God – and that only hurts you. And if you keep kicking anyway, then the only impact you can have on these events is a negative one.

You will only make it worse if you try to take your fate into your own hands and control your life, to make SURE you don’t die, to REFUSE to let her leave you, to desperately search for an answer to your problem which CANNOT be solved.

And so, as with Saul, the only way to ever have peace, the only way to turn off that internal dialogue, the only way to get rid of the constant anxiety and fear of everything from bats to strangers… the only way to ever feel normal, is to give up.

Matthew 6:27 Which of you, by being anxious, can add one moment to his lifespan?

We all know this is true – that none of us can add so much as a moment to our lifespan. The only thing we can do, which is what we have all done, is to shorten our lives by trying to lengthen them

Because stress, sooner or later, causes death. Death is only caused by sin. Therefore, stress is sin. And should be treated as such, and avoided just as much as you avoid lying or idols. Because the wages of stress is, in every case… death.

Think about that, next time you’re talking to the toxic people in your life; think about how this conversation could be shortening your life by a matter of weeks. Then decide if this conversation, indeed this relationship, is worth the cost.

And when you’re stressing over your job, or your relationship, or your future, think about the fact that even if you manage to find a solution at this point, the stress itself is shortening your life, probably by more than the actual problem you’re trying to fix will.

And then take big a step back and let it go.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

So the answer to anxiety? Let the bear win. Let the shark have a bite, if he insists. Let the girl go. When you give up the unwinnable fight, that is when you begin to win it. Because you can’t keep running from the bear forever – and if you try, you’ll die of exhaustion (stress) anyway.

Look the bear squarely in the eye, and maybe you’ll find out he isn’t hungry after all. Show him you don’t fear him, and maybe he’ll begin to fear you. But you are guaranteed to lose if you keep running. Yes, you’ll feel like you’re in control, but you have zero chance of survival.

Better to give up control, which gives you at least a chance of winning.

Learn to take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses. Learn that it is only when you are weak, that you are truly strong (2 Corinthians 12:10 (WEB)). Accept your lot in life and stop focusing on what you can’t have, and work with what you do.

Philippians 4:11-12 (WEB) Not that I speak in respect to lack, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content in it.
I know how to be humbled, and I know also how to abound. In everything and in all things I have learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in need.

If you want to conquer your anxiety, I can say with absolute conviction borne of personal experience: the only way out of this hell is to stop fighting for whatever you’re fighting for. Whether that’s your life, your family, your relationships.

It’s right to do what you can to improve your life; but when nothing is working, it’s usually because you’re trying to do something that can’t be done. Banging your head against that brick wall won’t fix anything.

So work on fixing your problems until you feel yourself getting stressed; then have the courage to give up. Step back, look around for the options God has given you, and go to work to accomplish something that can be done, something that is in your power to control.

Build a future that you can live in, rather than clinging desperately to a cause that was lost long ago. The bear always wins, unless you surrender to it. So if you really love your life… you have to stop fighting for it. You can’t keep it alive forever – only God can, and He won’t bother, unless you stop trying.

1 Samuel 2:6-10 (WEB) Yahweh kills, and makes alive. He brings down to Sheol, and brings up.
Yahweh makes poor, and makes rich. He brings low, he also lifts up.
He raises up the poor out of the dust. He lifts up the needy from the dunghill, To make them sit with princes, and inherit the throne of glory. For the pillars of the earth are Yahweh’s. He has set the world on them.
He will keep the feet of his holy ones, but the wicked shall be put to silence in darkness; for no man shall prevail by strength.
Those who strive with Yahweh shall be broken to pieces. He will thunder against them in the sky. Yahweh will judge the ends of the earth. He will give strength to his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed.

Let the Lord do His job. You do yours.