With the beginning of a new school year, new responsibilities, and the thought of yet another candle on my birthday cake this year… let’s just say I’ve been feeling a little bit anxious. Anxiety often finds me in my thoughts about the future and the unknown.

I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions like: what if I don’t have enough time to spend with my friends this school year? What if I don’t do well in this class? What if this feeling of stress never leaves?

Other times I’ve asked things like: What if they don’t like me because of what I did? What if ___ and I grow apart? What if I can’t find a job that I really like in the field I’m studying? What if my future is unfulfilling?

The list goes on…

I find that when I spend too much time by myself my thoughts tend to make up lots of different scenarios or possibilities of what other people are thinking. When I ask these questions, I tend to subconsciously make up an answer based on what I have thought about.

However, the other day I was thinking about Philippians 4:8. It says, “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” This time, instead of the entire verse that I’ve seen so nicely printed on throw pillows, I thought of just the first and last line:

“Whatever is true”…”dwell on these things”

The verse in its entirety advises us to dwell on the things that are good, lovely, pure, and excellent. One can assume that it advises us to do so instead of thinking of things that are harmful, ugly, evil, malicious, etc. It can also be concluded that it advises us to think of these things because in setting our mind on things “worthy of praise,” it sets them on things above. The things above are outside of our present circumstances and objectively more perfect than whatever is on Earth. However, when I read it the other day I focused in on the first line:

“Whatever is true”

A common culprit to anxiety is the scenarios, outcomes, and delusions that I have made up in my head. I know that I sometimes think of the negative possibility rather than what could go right. I often make up other people’s opinions that end up hurting my own feelings. But many of these conclusions I’ve come to have been created on the basis of information that isn’t necessarily true.

I once saw this quote on Pinterest that said “You’ll never actually know what people truly think of you– assume it’s lovely.”

And this had me thinking about how I can never know someone else’s thoughts about me no matter how close I am to them. But there are certain things that I can know about myself for sure:

like the fact that I am made in the image of God and so are they

that I act with the best intentions and can only hope others do the same

that I strive to love well and want to make people feel loved

And with all of these statements… all I’m left to do is focus on what is true rather than what I do not know for sure.

We aren’t supposed to dwell on the outcomes that haven’t happened yet, the things that could go wrong, or the people that we THINK don’t like us. We aren’t to think about future mistakes, regrets, or sadnesses that we may have. And we definitely aren’t supposed to focus on delusions in our heads that can feed into our idols, pride, and ultimately end up hurting us.

We are supposed to focus on the things that are undeniably and objectively true. When we focus on the place that God has put us, the circumstances he’s given us, and who He says we are, it makes us give those anxious thoughts a second guess:

Who told you that you weren’t going to be good at that thing?

Who said you were going to be miserable in those circumstances?

What made you believe that that was going to end that way?

If I ask myself these questions, I’m forced to question the validity of the things that I’m thinking about. Rather than sitting in my anxiety, sadness, or fear, I can live in and dwell on the things that are true.

As always,

Thanks for reading ❤