Exchanging Anxiety for Faith
Here we are… the end of another year. Wow! 2025 flew by, although at times it felt as though it was dragging.
The older I get and with every new year that comes and goes, I have begun to truly realize that every year is going to be marked with highs and lows of various kinds. Some years will be marked by relational hardships, others will be situational, and even others by physical health challenges, financial distress, grief and loss, etc. Amongst the trials, though, there are always blessings and gifts that are to be found. However, those blessings and gifts can get covered up if we focus too much on the trials.
It seems that in our American culture, or maybe it’s just human nature, we are always hoping for a great year filled with nothing but blessings, life giving opportunities, and happiness. I continue to recognize that this is a false gospel and truly a false hope. Ultimately, Christ promised us that this life on earth would have hardships, trials, and tribulations, but we are able to take heart and hope in Him because HE has overcome the world (John 16:33).
So if we know that the world offers us hardship and trials, why do we continuously think that a new year will bring us better days and better realities? Maybe it is because we are so desperate for a world that is not plagued by sin, loss, hate, and despair that we try to ignore the true nature of this fallen world.
As I reflect on this year, and the hardships that it has brought me, I can’t help but be ready for a new year and hopeful for better days ahead. Yet, it was in this reflection that I have equally been challenged by the Lord to surrender this “maybe next year will be my year and a better year all around” mentality. I feel challenged to simply embrace the fact that until Christ comes back, my life will be marked by hardships and many blessings, simultaneously.
Now, I am not saying we can’t be hopeful for certain hardships to ease up or fall away, and I am also not saying that we cannot be hopeful that the coming year will be a little easier to navigate and not as heavy. I believe that we can pray for such desires and surrender them to the Lord. At the end of the day, though, I want to challenge us to cling more tightly to the Lord and to believe that no matter what, the coming year will be exactly the one the Lord has prepared for us. A year of sanctification. A year of opportunity to grow in knowing who He is based on His Word and Truth. A year of opportunity to exchange our perspectives with His.
This year, as I navigated various trials with health and doctors and seeking diagnoses and explanations and answers, I was left with lots of doctors visits where I walked away empty-handed when no one could explain what was going on in my body. The first half of the year I felt as if I was in survival mode due to all the doctor’s appointments, lab work and diagnostic testing, along with working in ministry full time and planning a wedding in 5 months. In my attempt to survive and just get through the season, I was grateful for the good days the Lord blessed me with, but felt guilty that I didn’t feel I could embrace them and enjoy them as much as I desired because of the exhaustion and anxiety that was regularly plaguing me. Then the second half of the year has equally marked by me being in survival mode, but this was due to increased symptoms, major lows, and many days of being able to do only what was necessary.
It was in the second half of the year, that I would say I have begun to truly recognize God’s grace and ability to sustain me when I can’t keep myself going and don’t feel as though I am capable of holding myself up. Honestly, I now realize how easy it is to get caught up in our own ways and temptations of self-reliance, and that the Lord has assigned seasons for us to grow in our understanding that He is God and we are not. A season where He invites us (or what seems like forces us) into a period of more rest and quiet where we must face our deepest fears, idols, and insecurities. It’s a season where we can begin to exchange these hollow lies for His truth. It’s a season where we can begin to go back to the basics of the Gospel of Christ and remember that this life is not our own and it’s not about us.
Sometimes, the Lord just wants to show us that He sees us, knows the care we need, hears the cries of our broken hearts, understands our weaknesses, and desires us to be reminded of who He truly is because we lost focus during the hardships of life.
This is a gift, whether we recognize it at the time or not.
Life here on earth will never be perfect and will never meet all of our hopes and expectations. This fallen world can never bring us peace, hope, joy, and rest. Only Christ can accomplish this. Only the Gospel of Christ has the power to do so. Only the truth that there will be a day where the evil of this world will no longer be the visible rulers, but all will see that Christ is Lord and reigns victoriously.
So then what do we do in the meantime?
Good question.
We jump into His Word. We learn God’s character. We set our minds on Truth and on things above, not on earthly things. We fight to remember that God is always good, His ways and plans are perfect, He is wise in all He does, and He is sovereign over all. We seek to spend time with Him and bring our weary soul to Him. We learn to exchange our fears, anxieties, concerns, anger, pain, etc for faith. We set our eyes on Christ rather than our circumstances. Knowing Christ and placing our faith and hope in Him is our only source of true and lasting peace, joy, and rest this side of Heaven. Nothing else.
We can keep striving. We can keep trying. We can keep seeking elsewhere. But it will all come up short and lead to dead ends, hopelessness, exhaustion, and despair.
So as we come to the end of another year, I challenge you to spend some time reflecting:
What has God taught you?
What has been your biggest hardship?
What have been your greatest joys and blessings?
What were the things you had hoped would be true as this year ended? Maybe things you were praying for or goals you had set?
Now, I challenge you to think about what you want this coming year to look like:
What are your hopes and goals rooted in? Are they rooted in self-reliance, idols, dreams of a more perfect world, etc?
Where do you hope to be this time next year and what do you hope to be true?
Would you rather be a person of deeper faith in Christ or one who continues to fight for control of your life and circumstances?
Would you rather embrace the Lord’s perfect will of sanctification in your life or continue to try to pre-select what areas your willing to allow the Lord to work on and have access to?
Ultimately, every year… but more importantly, every single day, we have the chance to embrace a life of faith in Christ which will inevitably produce the fruit of hope, joy, peace, and strength. Now, living a life of faith sometimes is a second-by-second struggle because of what it is we are facing, BUT if we can remember that the Lord is good and He is with us every step of the way and will lead us through, then we can fight to breathe and give Him all those feelings.
Feelings are good. Feelings are opportunities to lead us into worship unto the Lord. Feelings are indicators of where we might not be trusting the Lord or where we might be believing lies. Bring all your thoughts and feelings to the Lord.
Let year 2026 be marked by a year of faith and growth. And even if year 2025 marked that for you… keep going and keep growing! We will never exhaust the scriptures or arrive at the pinnacle of our faith this side of Heaven. Let us place Christ as our hope, the perfecter and finisher of our faith, until the day He calls us home or returns to take us on home with Him.
The thing the Lord continues to grow me in is to exchange my anxiety and fear for faith - trusting Him and His promises. And although I can’t say I did an impeccable job this year… or even a great job, I can say I am excited to spend another year working on exchanging the lies of my mind, the fears of the unknowns, and the anxieties that arise in the various circumstances I face, with the Truth of His Word and the promises of Scripture.
The Lord is good; He is so so good. And this truth alone can calm any troubled soul.
Amen.
Happy New Year, friends and fam.
Soli Deo Gloria.
