The SECRET Problem Causing Your Worry and Anxiety

Do you constantly feel anxious? Are you overcome with worry about everything, but you're not even sure why? Do you fear that you're behind in life, you're always trying to catch up, you never feel enough, and it’s making you feel discouraged, inadequate, and frustrated? There is a deeply rooted spiritual reason why many women feel these ways, and it is a prevailing problem that no one seems to really be talking about until now. Today, I’m going to be sharing with you one of the most subtle, yet prevalent schemes of the enemy attacking women today and how to overcome it so you can freely live victoriously in Christ. Stay tuned!

As women, we are all busy and find it challenging to make time to connect with God and grow deeper in our faith in Jesus Christ. But in reality, we really do have real-life everyday obligations that we are responsible to meet. The bills need to be paid. Food needs to be on the table because our people are hungry, like always. We want to serve and fulfill the calling that God has placed on our lives which does require our time and effort.  While there's nothing wrong with experiencing a season of busyness,  overworking, anxiety, and discouragement are often a symptom of a much deeper problem facing women today that most women are unaware of for a very specific reason.

In today’s video, you will learn:

• 🤫 The secret problem facing women today
• 🔎 How to recognize this problem in your life
• 🆓 Steps to overcome and live FREE! 

THE SUBTLE YET PROBLEMATIC ISSUE FACING WOMEN TODAY

I discovered my own struggle with this issue on a regular, busy afternoon with my kids. I had just picked them up from the carpool line and realized I needed to get something from the grocery store to cook for dinner that night. That evening we had another obligation going on so I knew that I was going to be pressed for time in order to get the groceries, get the kids home,  help with their homework, prepare dinner, meet this obligation, and get the kids to bed on time. As I was leaving the grocery store, my anxiety increased without me realizing it until I spoke to my mom on the phone and she could hear the worry in my voice when I just felt like I was living a normal afternoon in the Patterson household because if I'm honest, most afternoons felt just like that. That time between 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. felt like a circus with trying to figure out what's for dinner, getting to practices, attending any kind of afternoon meetings, and trying to have quality time with the husband; everything just felt like it was pressed for time. While I was on the phone with my mom, she could hear it in my voice, and she said “Take your time.”

I instantly had flashbacks of other moments when I would hear my mom say to me over and over again, “Christina, take your time.” When she said it that day, and I remembered this wasn’t the first time she’d given me this warning, I realized that I had this pattern of rushing, of trying to speed through life, of trying to get things done faster, or as fast as possible. When I thought about it, I remembered how much that rushed, pushed, and pressured feeling led to most of the anxiety, discouragement, worry, and frustration that I felt. In fact, 99% of the time when I looked back on moments where I felt those ways, it was because I felt rushed. And I’m not the only one. A Pew Research Center survey reported that 26% of women said they “always felt rushed.”

One of the prevailing challenges that women are facing today and don't even know it isn't just the idea that we feel like we need to do all the things by ourselves, but even more, that we need to do them fast; that we need to do them faster than someone else, or fast just for the sake of being fast and we don't even know why.

WHY WE FEEL SO RUSHED ALL THE TIME

This feeling of rush isn't something that we just made up, and it didn't come out of nowhere. There are serious spiritual implications here that are actually a direct attack against the power that you have to operate in the kingdom of God. What I'm saying is that the pressure to rush is an attack on your soul.

The other day my husband came home from playing basketball, and I asked him how the game went, and he said that it went really well because they won the game, even though their opponents were large in size compared to his team. I questioned how they were able to pull off a win against such a larger team and he explained their strategy. Since his team was smaller in size, they used their speed to their advantage. He said they set a fast pace to the game and ran their opponents tired. In their fatigue, they were unable to take advantage of their large size and lost the game. Whoever sets the pace of the game has a better chance of winning. So I want to ask you, who is setting the pace of your life?

As Christian women, we have to realize that there is a real enemy to our souls that the Bible warns us about that has schemes to trick, deceive, and destroy us. This means that the enemy has taken time to observe us and make a plan intentionally to execute in order to steal, kill, and destroy us. The enemy isn't just sitting around waiting for us to by chance mess up and make a mistake. He is strategically making plans in advance to trap us without us even knowing it.

It’s no coincidence that we live in a society that honors, elevates, rewards, and recognizes speed. In fact, if you're slow at accomplishing something, you might be considered behind, but on the other hand, we have so many awards that we give to people who make accomplishments before they're 20 or before they're 30 or 40. We have the top 30 under 30 or who became a millionaire before they were 20,  and if you're over that age and you haven't met that accomplishment yet, you might feel like maybe you're behind or did something wrong and then you rush. You think, well I need to move faster now. I need to speed up so I can catch up for lost time.

Have we forgotten the fact that Abraham was one hundred years old when he had Issac? Have we forgotten the fact that Noah was 600 years old when he built the ark? Have we missed the scriptures that tell us that 100 years is like one day to God? He views time completely different than we do. 

THE HARM OF HURRY

Problem 1

As we've unknowingly fallen into this trap of hurry, rush, and speed at all costs, we've become confused about God's timing, His plan, and the fact that although we're in a rush, God is not. So it becomes difficult to trust God and to surrender to Him because we are not in step with Him when we rush and then we always find ourselves ahead of Him.

The other day, I was reading the story of Noah, and the scripture says that Noah was blameless and righteous, and then it said “Noah walked with God.” Throughout the scriptures, we see this discipline of walking with the Lord.

•  Psalms 23 says, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil” (Psalm 23:4)
•  We are called to “walk by the spirit” in Galatians 5:16
•  Isaiah 40 says when we trust God, we will walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)

Walking is not running, and it certainly is not a sprint. It's an intentional pace that is in alignment with God's timeline and not ours. 

Problem 2

Also, It is this rushed pressure that prevents us from loving others well because the Bible makes it clear that love is patient and you can't be patient if you're always in a rush.

Patience is an expression of love, but much of the anxiety, depression, frustration , and discontentment that we are experiencing in this generation is an expression of the hurry and rush that we've placed on ourselves and that we've allowed society to place on us.

Problem 3: Making Mistakes

The truth is we all have the same amount of time each day, and whatever you get done is what you get done. Oftentimes, the more that we try to speed things up and get them done faster, the more mistakes we make and the more problems we cause than if we were just to take our time and do it right the first time. 

Problem 4: Hinders our Relationship with God

Getting things done faster for the sake of getting them done faster can often be detrimental to our souls and our connection with God, and it is not worth it. We read about Martha in the Bible and how she was worried because she had all these preparations that she wanted to make because Jesus was at her home and other people were coming, so she was anxious and she was upset, but at the same time, I think that she was in a rush. I think that she wanted to get it done fast. I think that she was on a very tight timeline and it caused her to focus on the busyness and not the presence of God that was right there with her. 

What a shame if we speed through life and we get all the awards before everybody else and we make all these accomplishments in such a short amount of time and we're at this hurried pace that is faster than light, but we speed right past Jesus.

Every day, just like many of you, I face the pressure to rush, and I have to resist it with every bit of strength that I have. I hear my mom's voice in the back of my head: “Christina, take your time.” I remind myself that rushing this is going to make it unenjoyable, and it's not going to make it better. God knows where you are, He knows where you're going, and He knows how long it will take you to get there. Take your time.

HOW TO OVERCOME THE PRESSURE TO RUSH

So how can we overcome this pressure to always move fast?

Solution 1: Move at the Pace of God

For one, we make intentional strides to move at the pace of God. Instead of just instantly assuming we want to get this thing done as fast as I can, we seek God and we pray to Him for not only what He wants us to do, but also when He wants us to do it. Part of surrendering our lives to Christ is surrendering our timeline to Him.

Solution 2: Reset your finish lines

Many of us feel rushed because we come up with these unrealistic arbitrary timelines as far as when we think we should have accomplished something. I want to write my book in 30 days. I want to be married and have all of my babies before I turn 30. I want to have made a million dollars before I turn 35. But we have no real reason why we come up with these numbers other than the fact that maybe it just sounds good, but most of the time we don't even have control over those timelines and if we do, it puts an immense amount of pressure on us that can make the journey unenjoyable. We can resist this pressure to rush by giving ourselves permission to reset our finish lines. So if you have set unrealistic expectations of yourself that are causing you to feel hurried, give yourself some grace, move that finish line back, and know that it will be okay. 

Solution 3: Understand the Season You Are In 

The next step we must take to overcome the pressure to rush is understanding the season we are in. Sometimes, you will be in a busy running season, and that's not a bad thing, but there are times when God calls you to be in a restful, restorative recovery season. Walking with God means listening to what He wants you to do so we can operate at His pace based on where He has you in life. It's not about rushing; it's about obeying God.

God in His patience did not rush salvation, because He desired as many to be saved as possible. For thousands of years, He has waited to bring Jesus into the world to be a sacrifice for our sins and now for Jesus’ return to give even more people an opportunity to come to know Him through Christ. God is patient because He’s not in a rush, and if He’s not in a rush, neither should we.

My simple message for you today is to resist the pressure to hurry. My mom’s wisdom, “Take your time,” is good, but I’d go a step further and say, “Take God’s time.”

Now I know that this puts us in a position where we may find ourselves waiting on God and how challenging that can be, so I encourage you to watch this video where I share 4 mindset shifts we must make so we can wait on God well. 

For more encouragement, download my free Bible Study called “Worry-Free” to learn the 3 lies feeding your worry and the truth to set you free at belovedwomen.org. Thanks for watching, and until next time, be beautiful, be blessed, and beloved.