I’m not sure if you have noticed, but the path toward healing from anxiety, depression, or other brain health issues is a lot like following Jesus. What?!? Craig, how can you compare healing to becoming like Jesus? It might sound far-fetched, but I hope you will stick with me to the end.
Before I experienced what I refer to as my “big break,” I was struggling but didn’t realize just how bad it was. I was a newlywed excited about my adventure with my beautiful bride. I was also learning what it means to be a husband while learning to provide for our family. I was navigating lots of new territory. With all of this, I experienced several bumps in the road.
Perhaps one of the big ones was being laid off from my first real job and finding myself looking for work in a horrible economy. As I mentioned above, I was struggling and trying to do it alone. My support system was essentially nonexistent. I was in a new phase of my life, and many of my friends were also in different places in their lives as well. When it came to dealing with stress, anxiety, or my recent job loss, I tried to cope with it on my own.
I didn’t know what I didn’t know at this point in my life. I did precisely what our society tells many men. “Be a man!” “Man up!” “Pray harder!” I thought it was time to keep my nose down, pray a prayer, and work harder to cope and find a new job. What I completely missed was my need to partner with God to become the person He created me to be.
James Meehan says that there are three things we need to do to partner with God.
- Remove our pride
- Receive His grace
- Respond with obedience
When facing overwhelming anxiety and depression, my battle was not only with my brain health, it was much more significant. My battle was choosing to partner with God to become who He created me to become. In the next few minutes, I hope to show you how these same ideas for following Jesus also apply to the path of healing from anxiety and depression.
Remove Our Pride
In Matthew 11:28, Jesus tells us, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” The problem is that in our desire to become more like Jesus, we often try to live as we did before surrendering to Jesus. This is an incredibly tragic and devastating mistake. We go about this process of becoming more like Jesus without the help of Jesus. We might check in with Jesus on the weekends, during our quiet time or perhaps on Wednesdays, but the rest of the week is ours to get things done.
We do our best to become more and more like Jesus, but without His help, it only leads to legalism which leads to performance. Likewise, what we don’t know can do the most damage when facing brain health challenges. I didn’t know I needed help or to call a counselor after being laid off. I tried to handle my struggle with anxiety and depression without others and many times without Jesus.
You see, we may believe we can handle our anxiety or depression on our own, but like following Jesus, doing so will lead to frustration, devastation, and shame. James Meehan says, “Pride always leads to shame.” When we mistakenly believe that we can handle our anxiety on our own, we set ourselves up for quite a rude awakening.
Receive God’s Grace
Let’s face it: I don’t like depending on others. WE don’t like depending on others. Especially someone we can’t physically touch or see. So, I am just guessing that me telling you that you need to receive God’s grace probably doesn’t sit well with you.
Regardless of whether you are trying to become more like Jesus or trying to heal from a season of anxiety or depression, the second thing you must do is to receive God’s grace.
“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:8-10 NIV
No, I am not saying that simply receiving God’s grace will fix your struggle with anxiety or depression. Trust me, I’ve tried it. And despite what many might tell you, brain health challenges are not from a lack of faith.
So what are you saying?
I will tell you that to become more like Jesus and face the long days ahead, you WILL need the power that is available to you when Christ’s power rests on you. You NEED the power of the Holy Spirit working in and through you. But to get there, first, you must remove your pride and receive God’s grace.
Respond with Obedience
The road to recovery from anxiety and depression is a lot like following Jesus. When we begin following Jesus, we must learn that we are no longer our source of everything. A shift must occur for us to faithfully follow Him.
One of the biggest mistakes I made early on with anxiety and depression is not learning to place my burdens at the feet of Jesus. A big reason I didn’t was a choice driven by fear. The second part of this was pride. I never would have thought of it as pride going through it, but it’s pretty clear now. We must respond in obedience to what Jesus says in Matthew 11:28-29.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11:28-29 NIV
I’ve read this verse a hundred times, but I never took the time to understand what was probably common knowledge in Biblical times. The yoke mentioned here is a tool used to spread the load across two animals. For Believers in Jesus’ day, this represented the responsibilities and obligations people often carried, especially the expectations of religious law. Religious leaders placed a heavy “yoke” of legalism on people, which made it incredibly challenging to feel close to God. In Matthew 11, Jesus is offering Believers something different—a yoke that is light, gentle, and led by love.
Let me be clear: this is not Jesus saying that we should kick up our feet and take it easy for the rest of our lives. Jesus shows us that if we choose to humbly live under his guidance, he will show us a better way. One that is not harsh nor condemning but full of grace, peace, kindness, and patience. Remember, God wants to help us to become the person He created us to be, but to do that, we must learn to humble ourselves and bring our burdens to Jesus.
How about you? Do you find it hard to make this shift? Are you still trying to handle things on your own?
I encourage you to learn from my mistakes and humbly lay whatever is weighing you down at the feet of Jesus. He is your source of everything, and Jesus is patiently waiting for you to come to him.
You and I weren’t designed to carry the weight of our burdens. It’s time to give up our pride and invite others into our lives. It’s time to bring our burdens to Jesus and stop trying to do it all ourselves.
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