A biblical response to panic on this edition of Truth in Love.

I'm Heath Lambert and you're listening to Truth in Love, a podcast of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors,

where we seek to provide biblical solutions

to the problems people face.

One of the most persistent human struggles that we all encounter is the problem of worry.

Everyone knows what it is to confront this problem.

Some struggle with the sort of low-grade fever of worry over whether they'll have enough money to pay their bills at the end of the month.

Others face the more extreme kind of anxiety that leads to the labored breathing and chest pains of a panic attack.

Whether the problem is on the mild or the extreme end of things, we all face it, and that means we must have a biblical response for it.

This is particularly important because many different we must have a biblical response for it. This is particularly important

because many different voices undercut a biblical response. On the mild end of the problem of worry,

many excuse it as not so big a deal. In fact, anxiety is one of the problems that Jerry Bridges

identifies as the kind of respectable sin that Christians have wrongly learned to tolerate.

On the extreme end of the problem of worry, many excuse panic attacks as a physical problem

that only requires medical treatment. While it's true that some do need medical attention

for extreme panic, we cannot reduce the problem to being merely a medical problem.

The response of Jesus to worry is not either of those extremes. In Matthew 6, verse 30, Jesus grounds the problem of worry in the

presence of, to use his words, little faith. This is a loving and powerful reminder from Jesus to

we his people that we must fight our fears,

however mild or extreme, with faith in Jesus Christ.

That means that whatever else we do, those of us who worry, must grow in faith in the kind

care of Jesus, our shepherd.

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