STOP!
That was the word.
I’ve taught on Philippians 4:4-9 for a number of years. In fact it’s even been a passage that has helped me with my own anxiety. One particular strategy that I employed was to use something I called STOP cards. On one side I wrote in big letters the word ‘stop’. On the other side I wrote the words of Philippians 4:8. The idea was to stop by negative thinking and begin thinking about the positive stuff.
But the word “stop” isn’t anywhere in this text. The only negative sounding imperative is in verse 6, “Do not be anxious” and that’s there as a foil for the admonition to pray continually. Don’t be anxious but instead pray.
Now it’s not completely ridiculous to assume that you’d need to stop thinking negatively in order to take up meditating on whatever is true, noble, praiseworthy, etc. It’s basic logic. If you’re hands are at maximum capacity you’ll need to drop one thing in order to pick up another.
But I’ve come to believe that the STOP! step is, at best, unnecessary and at worst, harmful. One particular study, conducted by Alison Wood Brooks, found that trying to “relax and calm down” was not the best strategy for dealing with anxiety. But rather reappraising anxiety as excitement actually helped significantly.
In other words, we can expend a ton of energy trying to make ourselves calm down when what we really ought to do is convert that energy. Adam Grant says it well:
Fear is an intense emotion: You can feel your heart pumping and your blood coursing. In that state, trying to relax is like slamming on the brakes when a car is going 80 miles per hour. The vehicle still has momentum. Rather than trying to suppress a strong emotion, it’s easier to convert it into a different emotion—one that’s equally intense, but propels us to step on the gas. (Grant, 216)
What Grant and Brooks are saying is, I believe, precisely what Paul was saying in Philippians 4. That “different emotion” for the Christian is one of praise and focus on the Lord.
I still land at the same spot. We do well for our mental health to spend our days meditating on what is true and noble and praiseworthy instead of the muck of this world. But I don’t believe there should be time spent trying to “calm down and relax”. Whenever we feel anxiety creep up our job isn’t to focus on “don’t be anxious” it is to focus on “let your requests be made known to God”.
We live in an anxious time. Philippians 4:4-9 applies now…especially now. We are called to rejoice in the Lord in the midst of virus. We are called to not be anxious in the midst of job loss. We are called to think upon Christ and to put into practice the gospel which has shaped us even when so much certainty surrounds us.
Your battle in this season isn’t to not feel anxious. It’s to not be anxious. That doesn’t come through pumping the brakes on our anxiety. It comes by being pedal to the metal in prayer. It comes from meditating daily upon the goodness of God.
So my stop cards only have one side these days. How have I seen the goodness of God today? And I try to camp out there.
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