Can a Christian be Anxious?

Words are dangerous things. As with a knife in the hands of a surgeon or the grasp of an assassin, whether they heal or harm depends on the manner in which they are wielded. The words of Scripture are no different in this regard. Divinely inspired and intended to further the purposes of the Loving God, when used incorrectly they can wound the soul.

In my experience, some of the most dangerous words in the Bible can be found in Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi-

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

Written to encourage believers to focus their hope on God and his eternal purposes, they are at times transformed into a cudgel of discouragement, ignorantly wielded in a manner that bruises the hearts and minds of emotionally struggling Christians. “Do not be anxious,” wrongly elevated to the status of commandment, becomes a measure of faithfulness such that the presence of anxiety is interpreted as a sign of mistrust in God, spiritual immaturity and sin.

For Christians stricken with anxiety disorder, these words can be devastating. Feelings of guilt and inadequacy, already the daily companions of anxiety sufferers, grow in power and intensity at the implication that one’s feelings of anxiousness are a sinful choice.

I have been on both the giving and receiving end of these misspoken words. In the formative years of my Christian faith I attended a church with a Pentecostal bent, a place where faith was more emotional than intellectual, a place where hurting people were “encouraged” to simply “let go and let God.” Prayers for the struggling often included asking God to help them “trust God more” or to be “set free” from sin. I joined in these prayers, ignorant of the impact of my words.

My perspective changed a little over 10 years ago. I was preparing to enter an exam room one day when I felt a sense of dread come over me. Uneasiness and fear took hold. For no reason at all I felt as if something bad was about to happen. These feelings were soon joined by pressure in my chest, lightheadedness and a sense of detachment. My mind began to race and I felt as if my emotions were about to spin out of control.

“What is happening to me?” I thought. I answered my own question as quickly as I had asked it. “I am having a panic attack!”

The intellectual awareness of what was happening gave me the strength to stall the downward spiral. I was able to calm myself partially, enough to allow myself to call my wife and ask her to bring some medication from home. I had the presence of mind to tell my staff what was going on, and to ask them to reschedule some of my patients. It took a while, but with great effort and the calming presence of my wife I was able to finish my work day.

In the weeks that followed additional attacks came. I found myself in fear of the next attack and what it would do to me. I developed other fears as well, including intense self-doubt in personal and professional interactions. With the fears came increased irritability as I struggled to regain a sense of control over my life and thoughts. I saw a doctor, and with the help of counseling and medications learned to deal with a new reality.

I have not been the same since. While debilitating moments of panic have been rare, fear and anxious feelings now greet me every morning. Their voices are quieter some days than others, at times easily drowned out by the clamor of the day, but they are always present. Countless hours in prayer and Bible study have made one thing certain. Telling myself, or being told by others, “Don’t be anxious”, does not help.

It does not help, because the words of Paul (and Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount), were not meant to be used in this fashion. New Testament teaching about anxiety is never directed at the generalized sense of unease associated with a serotonin imbalance, it is directed at the human tendency to obsess and focus on earthly needs in a way that is contrary to a life of faith.

When Paul wrote to the church at Philippi, he was in prison, awaiting a possible death sentence. The church was being persecuted and many believers were suffering for their faith. It would have been easy for them to out of fear turn away from God. To these people, in these circumstances, Paul said, “Do not be anxious… but make your requests known to God.” Similarly, in the sermon on the mount Jesus reminded people not to focus on material needs, but to instead trust in God’s eternal purposes.

Paul was not saying that all anxiety was sin, or that Christians should never be anxious. He was acknowledging the danger that in focusing on the sufferings of this present life Christians can become discouraged. He therefore reminded them of the alternative, to focus on God and his promises.

I do not believe feelings of anxiety are a measure of anyone’s faith. Faith is displayed not in the absence of doubt or fear, but in the choice to trust God and his purposes in their presence. I do not say to myself, “Stop being anxious and trust God.” I instead say, “Yes, you are anxious, trust God anyway.”

These words do not take my anxious feelings away, but they do put the feelings in context. I am reminded that I will not be anxious forever. Eternity awaits, free from both emotional and physical pain. In that hope I find hope, peace, confidence and strength. I also find, strangely, a sustaining sense of joy.

Bart

While the focus of this post has been on Christian perceptions of anxiety it is worth noting that bad counsel is not limited to people of faith. Patients often tell me about family and friends not understanding their struggles, of being told that there is no reason for them to be anxious. I typically smile as I point out that this is why it is called an anxiety disorder. Normal people worry for a reason, people with anxiety disorder are often anxious for no reason at all. 

All patients with anxiety, regardless of faith, should be encouraged to get help. Counseling, in particular Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, is extremely beneficial. Medications, especially selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, can also be tremendously helpful tools.

Failure is not an Option, it is a Certainty

It wasn’t supposed to end this way.

The CT scan of his lungs was supposed to be normal. Joe did not have any symptoms of cancer, no shortness of breath or unexplained weight loss. He was completely healthy. Nevertheless, new guidelines for lung cancer screening had just been announced and although he felt fine he fell within the screening parameters. I followed those guidelines and ordered a lung scan.

The results were a surprise. He had a mass in his lungs that was unquestionably cancerous in appearance. The news was bad but there was cause for hope. The scan seemed to have done its job and caught the cancer in time. The tumor appeared to be of an operable size and there was no evidence of spread. I was confident that Joe would be okay.

The surgeon shared my optimism and scheduled a resection of the tumor for the following week. The patient was upbeat, grateful that his cancer had been discovered early. He was nearing retirement and was looking forward to many more years with his family confident that our early diagnosis was going to give him those years. He felt so healthy that the day before the procedure he spent time with his grandson shooting baskets in his driveway.

We were all proven wrong. The surgery did not go well. The tumor was much larger than expected and was wrapped around one of the bronchi. Simple removal was impossible. The planned wedge resection gave way to a resection of the entire upper lobe of his lung. It was going to be a difficult recovery.

It was worse than difficult. Each day seemed to bring a new complication. We learned that his years of smoking had taken a much greater than expected toll on his lungs. He had more COPD than his tests had suggested, and the lungs he had left struggled to meet the oxygen demands of his body. The stress of the surgery led to Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, a life-threatening condition that causes lungs to get stiff and hard to inflate, as well as fluid to seep into the areas where oxygen is exchanged. We could not get him off of the breathing machine. Less than a week after shooting baskets with his grandson, he was dying.

Multiple specialists were called, all of them excellent, all of whom did everything they could to halt the downward spiral. They all failed. After about a week it was clear that he would not survive. Filled with sadness I came to the hospital to deliver the news to his shell-shocked wife. Together we made the decision to remove life support and let him go. We had done our best, but we had lost.

It is a sad reality of life that doing our best does not guarantee success. Excellence does not always result in good outcomes. This is not always easy to accept. We live in a results-based society that celebrates the motto from Apollo 13- “Failure is not an option.”

The truth is that failure happens, even to the best of us. Good doctors lose patients, good drivers get in car accidents, and good parents have kids that go astray. Those of us who understand this can resist the temptation to judge others based on things they cannot control, and take comfort in knowing that God judges us not on external results, but on the heart that only he can see.

- Bart

Dogs, Squirrels, and a Wasted Life

Sadie on Squirrel Guard Duty

My dog is obsessed with squirrels. I realize all dogs are, but she has taken things to a different level. She has dialed her squirrel intensity up to 11. Her walks are less about exercise and more about squirrel hunting. Her eyes continuously scan the environment looking for the flicking tail or bounding scamper of her prey. So intent is she that she remembers the location of every previous squirrel sighting so she can return to it on following days. As she approaches the sites of previous encounters her body tenses and quivers and she strains against her leash, muscles taut, ready to launch into the chase should the animal reappear.

Lately her squirrel problem has become our problem. There seems to be a somnambulatory one that likes to traverse our back fence in the middle of the night. Our sleep is often interrupted by the sound of our dogs jumping to their feet, sprinting down the hall, and bursting through the doggy door in response to the sound of the squirrel invader.

Things have escalated. We are now at SquirrelCon 4. It seems that this squirrely night walker has now taken up residence in our neighbor’s yard. As far as Sadie is concerned this is an evil that cannot stand. She is perpetually on the lookout for it, spending hours on guard duty staring through a crack in the fence. She will not rest until her furry enemy enters its final rest. The squirrel’s death is now her primary reason for living.

As I watched her watching the fence this morning I laughed at the absurdity of her doggy behavior. The squirrel was impossibly out of her reach. There was nothing she could do to get to it, yet she gave it all of her attention.

This behavior is funny in a dog, but it is tragic for people. Looking at her I thought about the hours, days and years I have similarly wasted focusing on things that were unobtainable and out of reach. I thought of the time I spent wishing my father would realize disowning me was a mistake and hoping my mom would become sober. I recalled patient behavior I could not change, professional recognition I could not gain, and relationship problems I could not solve. I had so many thoughts about so many things I couldn’t change.  It seems that wasted attention is not merely a canine problem.

What is sad about futile attention is that it always has a cost. When we focus on the unobtainable we turn away from blessings that are within our reach. Time spent trying to change patients who were set in their ways is time I could have spent helping others who would have benefitted from my attention. Hours of thinking and planning on how I could get people to appreciate me are hours I could have spent in quality moments with the family and friends who already loved me and appreciated me.

How much better would all of our lives be if we learned this lesson. It is time to focus on the good we can do, the love we can share and the lives we can touch, and not on those things beyond our reach.

It is time to be smarter than my dog.

Bart

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Naked in College

Letitia Chai giving her thesis presentation at Cornell. from Facebook

There’s an old saying about how one can overcome anxiety when speaking in public, “Imagine your audience in their underwear.” I speak in public often but have never resorted to this tactic (perhaps because most of my presentations are done in church and such thoughts would be inappropriate.) This last week a student at Cornell University went the opposite direction. She gave her thesis presentation wearing only her underwear and asked the audience to join her.

The story is that Letitia Chai, the aforementioned student, was about to give a practice presentation of her thesis in the class “Acting in Public: Performance in Everyday Life”. As she was preparing to deliver her talk the professor commented on her attire (she was wearing very short cut-off denim shorts) and asked if that was what she was planning on wearing for her final presentation. The question did not go over well.

Ms. Chai was taken aback and offended at the perceived criticism of her appearance. She took particular umbrage at her teacher’s suggestion that her appearance was making a statement that might detract from the points Ms. Chai was trying to make. Ms. Chai stormed out of the class. A few minutes later she returned to the room and took her spot in front of the class, wearing only her bra and underwear. She later wrote how proud she was that she had stood up for “every person who has been asked to change how they look to make other people feel comfortable.”

Her story resonates with me for I had a similar conversation with a female medical student a few years ago. The student, by far one of the best I have ever taught, showed up to the office in a tight fitting blue cotton t-shirt along with white denim pants and a matching blue belt. The outfit was undeniably “cute” but it looked like something a young college student would wear on a date. It was not what would I considered professional attire. I pointed this out to her.

“You are a young woman,” I told her, “and you are asking people to trust you with their lives. Look the part.” I told her it would be easier for people to take her seriously if she was dressed seriously and that when she came to my office to see my patients I wanted her to dress as if she was interviewing for a professional position.

To her credit she received the feedback in the spirit is was given. Each day thereafter she wore either a dress or slacks and blouse. She oozed professionalism and carried herself with class. While nothing about her knowledge or skill set had changed, the perception others had of her did. It was a growth experience for her.

Over the years I have had similar conversations with other students, employees and even my children. My message is always the same. Like it our not, what we wear sends a message. Our jobs get easier when the message sent by our appearance aligns with what we hope to communicate. If we want people to think we are professional, we should dress professionally. As a physician I want to do everything I can to convince people I know what I am talking about, I do not want to give them any reason to dismiss what I say. Unlike Ms. Chai, I intentionally change my look in order to make other people feel comfortable. I do this because they are more important than I am.

This is true in every area of my life. When I give advice to a patient, it is the patient’s understanding that matters. When I deliver a sermon in church, the intent is for the audience to receive what I am saying. When I am called to the hospital to meet with a family about end of life care, it is important they believe I am an expert in the ethical issues we discuss. In each of these settings I choose my wardrobe carefully. I always where a dress shirt and tie in the office, always wear a collared shirt in church and always wear a conservative suit when I meet with families. Communication is never easy; there is no reason to make it more difficult by dressing inappropriately.

It appears this is a life lesson Ms. Chai has yet to learn. 

- Bart

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The Most Important Part of Church

A patient came in recently who I had not seen in a few years. I have known him for quite a while as we met 10 years ago at a church we attended in Irvine. We weren’t particularly close back then but he apparently thought enough of me to select me as his physician. 

As we had met a church it seemed appropriate to ask how things were going at the church he attended. He shared that they had switched churches recently and that he was now going to a different church in town. Ironically, it was a church my family had attended 15 years ago.  When I asked him why they had changed to this church his answer was a common one, that his kids were comfortable in the church's youth group.

After the visit I found myself pondering how it is that people choose a church. The common answers I have heard over the years include style of music, size of the youth group, and "relevant" or entertaining teaching from the pulpit. An answer that I have never heard is the one that should be the most important- church doctrine, the specific beliefs taught from the pulpit.

In the last few years I have seen firsthand the impact bad teaching can have on a congregation. Not too long ago I  heard a pastor in town demean the struggles some Christians have with their faith. "If reading the bible is a chore, if prayer is a struggle for you, you do not know God," he proclaimed. His casually false teaching made it difficult for people to speak truthfully about their struggles. Patients who attend the church have told me stories of having their faith questioned if the shared of any personal challenges. Guilt and shame have at times taken the place of grace.

A well known North Orange county pastor recently came to the conclusion that the Bible wasn't fully accurate. He shared with his church and his online followers that the Bible was written for specific people at a specific time and place in history, and that much of it no longer applied. I know some of his young followers took his words to heart. They "discovered" that the parts of the Bible that spoke of sexual purity no longer applied to their lives.

Both of the churches led by these pastors have been "successful." They are well attended and the pastors are loved and praised by their church members. In spite of their apparent success I fear for them. To be successful in God's eyes requires pastors two accurately proclaim God's word. Doctrine matters. Correct theology is important.

I know this is important because it was important to the Apostle Paul. When he penned letters to the pastors he trained, when he instructed them on the things to which they needed to be faithful, sound doctrine was high on the list. Several times in his letters he mentioned the importance of correct teaching. He was clearly aware that a faith filled with new believers would be susceptible to error. There was a significant danger that the tenets of the faith could be altered or lost. In this environment faithfulness to the truth was essential.

The importance of sound doctrine remains to this day. A faith without consistent beliefs is not a faith worth believing in.

Unfortunately Paul’s admonitions about sound doctrine have lost emphasis in many churches. The focus is on acts of service and self improvement instead of on right thinking about God. As important as good deeds are, the reality is that if our theology is not correct we are nothing more than a social club. Why we do what we do matters. What we believe matters. We cannot be people of faith if we do not even know what we believe in.

-Bart