One of my favorite movies is called "50 First Dates" released in 2004 with Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler. In the romantic-comedy movie, a woman, played by Drew Barrymore, has short term memory loss which causes her to forget what happens the day before. Adam Sandler's character falls in love with her, pursues her, and realizes he has to make her fall in love with him all over again, every single day. He finds a method to do that by reminding her of how much he loves her, every morning.
When hard times occur it's tempting to forget how much God loves us because of focusing on the problem. Examples of hard times are prices of everything increasing, but pay is still the same; a pandemic and other diseases; natural disasters are global problems. Dealing with the world's problems on top of personal things, like a cheating spouse, kids not behaving in school, car keeps breaking down, a loved one passes away are mentally and spiritually draining. These things will cause anyone, on any day, possibly everyday, to forget about God's love and peace because of worry and fear.
Worrying causes focus to be on all the problems which leads to anxiety. The brain has emotion detectors that communicates with the mind on how to react to something. Anxiety effects the brain negatively by causing it to work over time, which results in overthinking, stress and fear. Overthinking, stress and fear cause anxiety. Anxiety can lead to physical problems damaging the body. The brain, mind and body are in a dangerous anxiety cycle until the cycle is broken.
How to break the anxiety cycle? Unfortunately, no one is exempt from problems happening. It's life and life happens. The Bible gives a clear formula on how to break the anxiety cycle: pray and receive God's peace. It sounds easy, and it is, but I must admit I'm guilty of praying, God giving me confidence everything is going to be okay, then I go right back to worrying about the problem God just told was going to be okay. What did I do wrong?
The Bible says in Philippians 4:6 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." This is a powerful, common scripture that's the first part of the formula, pray and be thankful. The next scripture is just as important. "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:7.
The mistake I made is I didn't allow God's peace to guard my mind and heart. I picked the problem right back up instead of reminding myself of God's protection of peace. Just like in the movie, a daily reminder is needed of God's peace and love. We have to be like Adam Sandler's character in "50 First Dates" that is remind ourselves every day of the guard of peace in our minds so that anxiety will not exist in our lives. We have to remind ourselves every day that God loves us, He hears our prayers, and He will take of our problems.
Prayer:
Dear Lord, We acknowledge that you are King of Kings, Lord of Lords. We thank you for all you've done. We come humbly before You asking you to give us strength, wisdom, ears to hear, during hard times. Surround us with Your presence. We welcome in Your peace to guard our minds and hearts from anxiety and fear. In Jesus name, Amen.