Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World

by Max Lucado

Anxiety is a meteor shower of what-ifs.

Anxiety is trepidation.

Anxiety and fear are cousins but not twins. Fear sees a threat. Anxiety imagines one.

The presence of anxiety is unavoidable, but the prison of anxiety is optional.

Anxiety is not a sin; it is an emotion. (So don’t be anxious about feeling anxious.)

Celebrate. Ask. Leave. Meditate. C.A.L.M.

Paul’s prescription for anxiety begins with a call to rejoice.

This verse is a call, not to a feeling, but to a decision and a deeply rooted confidence that God exists, that he is in control, and that he is good.

To change the way a person responds to life, change what a person believes about life. The most important thing about you is your belief system.

Perceived control creates calm. Lack of control gives birth to fear.

Anxiety increases as perceived control diminishes.

We can’t take control, because control is not ours to take.

To read Paul is to read the words of a man who, in the innermost part of his being, believed in the steady hand of a good God.

Stabilize your soul with the sovereignty of God. He reigns supreme over every detail of the universe.

God’s answer for troubled times has always been the same: heaven has an occupied throne.

our biggest fears are sprained ankles to God.

The next time you fear the future, rejoice in the Lord’s sovereignty. Rejoice in what he has accomplished. Rejoice that he is able to do what you cannot do. Fill your mind with thoughts of God.

The mind cannot at the same time be full of God and full of fear.

guilt frenzies the soul; grace calms it.

My salvation has nothing to do with my work and everything to do with the finished work of Christ on the cross.