"On the same day, when evening had come, He said to them, 'Let us cross over to the other side.' Now when they had left the multitude, they took Him along in the boat as He was. And other little boats were also with Him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that it was already filling. But He was in the stern, asleep on a pillow. And they awoke Him and said to Him, 'Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?' Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, 'Peace, be still!' And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. But He said to them, 'Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?' And they feared exceedingly, and said to one another, 'Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!'" (Mark 4:35-41)

A recent headline says this:
Age of Anxiety: America seems to be in the midst of a full-blown panic attack. Is there anything we can do about it?

Recent surveys and studies from 2024–2025 confirm that anxiety remains a widespread concern across the United States, particularly among younger adults and adolescents.

In other words, if you're worried a lot, you're not alone.

Welcome to a new series called Anxiety Detox.

 

My talk today is Part 1: What is Anxiety?

Before I get into it, I want to make a disclaimer:

Some Anxiety can have medical, physiological, or psychological causes. These would include panic attacks and other serious disorders, struggles that are really disruptive to a person's life.

I am not going to talk directly about this clinical level of anxiety disorders. I encourage you to seek medical help and Christian counseling professionals for this. This may involve medication. Definitely prayer... even deliverance prayer (we have a ministry for this). Nutrition, sleep, rest, exercise, and love.

Whatever you struggle with, own it. Get the help you need. Pathway Church will support you in that. But in all that you do, you still need to make Jesus and the Word of God your foundation in all of it.

In this series I am talking about anxiety that crops up in all the concerns of everyday life. Especially when anxieties grow large enough to negatively affect everyday functions and relationships.

So let's get into...

This is a good thing. It lets you plan. It lets you anticipate the beautiful things in your future.

But it can be an emotionally disruptive thing:
Because when those mental simulations of tomorrow take a dark turn, that's when troubles begin today.

Which is why Jesus said, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."

(Matthew 6:34)

When God made you, he gave you this superpower called Imagination.

It's like having a movie producer inside your own head. You're sitting in a giant movie theater, an immersive experience, and you're watching your future story unfold of how things are going to go.

Your future self is the star of the movie. It's either going to be an epic adventure with a happy ending showing the nobility of the humble hobbits, or an epic catastrophe with Sauron and his army of orcs taking over the world.

What kind of movie were the disciples running when Jesus took them on a boat at sea.

While Jesus slept peacefully, they were running an internal movie: 'The waves are getting higher... the boat is filling... we are going down... and Jesus doesn't even care.. we're dying.'

Their future selves were leading actors in a disaster film.

God meant for imagination to be a gift to you. He meant it to be a source of pleasure. It's the source of creativity and all the beauty in the world.

But the imagination is also a source of worry, and that's what we're talking about.

I have an awesome nephew named Joe. When he was in fifth grade, he wrote a story called, The Dog Ate My Homework. From that little event, it was a chain reaction.

Because the dog ate his homework, his teacher got mad.
Because his teacher got mad, she called his parents.
Because she called his parents, they missed a day at work.
Because they missed a day at work, the power plant had problems.
Because the power plant had problems... well you get the chain reaction idea...

The story ends with the whole world blowing up, all because the dog ate his homework.

His teacher forgave him for all his missed homework.

This is called Catastrophizing. I like the word Horriblizing.

This is what happens when the movie you're making in your head takes a dark turn... and everything spirals into the worst-case scenario.

This is what happened when God brought his people to the promised land. God gave them this land for their blessing. God also promised to drive out the really chaotic and depraved cultures that were occupying their ancestral land.

When they got there, God's people sent in 12 spies to do recon.

Two spies said that the land was incredible and beautiful, and yes, there are enemies in the land, but God will help us drive them out, let's go.

Tens spies said that the land was incredible and beautiful, and the enemies in the land were giants that make all of us look like grasshoppers by comparison and if we try to take that land we're doomed... and that story ends like this:

 

"So all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, 'If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness! Why has the LORD brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?'" (Numbers 14:1-3)

The spies' catastrophizing is a classic example.

And the disciples in the boat showed the same chain reaction in real time.

One wave led to another in their minds until the only logical conclusion was, 'We are perishing.'

If you've ever known a chain smoker, they can smoke a whole pack with one match, because one cigarette lights the next.

So it is with anxiety. One thought lights the next thought which lights the next and they keep getting bigger, and darker, and "horribler"... until everybody hates you and even God has forsaken you, and everything precious to you is in ashes.

So goes the anxious imagination.

You can view worry as a chain reaction of future thinking that's taken a turn down a dark path.

Make sense?

Now let's add another feature to understand what anxiety is.