You need to repent of idols of the heart. Idols of the heart are ruling desires of your heart. Begin by identifying the heart with these two questions:
1. Is your desire, “Not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42, NIV)?
2. Or does your cry sound more like demands for security, approval, comfort, and love?
When you want security, approval, comfort, and love, and get want you demand, pride will fill you. Underneath the veneer of pride and self-righteousness are emotions like anxiety, anger, and discouragement and actions like seething, shouting, nail-biting, insomnia, overeating, and self-loathing.
Just as the prodigal son demanded his way, just as the older son self-righteously sneered at his brother when he returned home, chances are you too have ruling desires of the heart that are unholy.
Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you negative thoughts, critical speech, gossip, bitterness, immorality, and anything else that exposes a self-ruled heart.
You may want to jot down what the Holy Spirit reveals to you. What are the “rotten fruit” that expose the ruling desires of your heart?
Did you know that what rules your heart, rules you? Click & Tweet!
Faithfully yours,
Lucy
What about severe anxiety that is accompanied by rashes, multiple chemical sensitivities, joint pain, headaches, raynauds, etc and is experienced when there are changes in weather, seasons and menstrual cycle not necessarily started by thoughts?
What verses can you lean on when you logically can find nothing to be anxious about, but FEEL anxious? I have a tendency to start looking for something to attribute why I am feeling the way I am feeling.
Dear Anon,
What you describe sounds like a medical condition needing treatment from a medical doctor. Have you seen a medical doctor? What did he or she say? Whether or not it’s a medical condition, you could always find comfort by reading Philippians 4:6-10. Let me know who it goes. God really does love you. I care.
Lucy