anxiety on Oppressed

Lord Jesus—the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, and the author of change, who’s constantly doing “a new thing,” which makes us sit up and take notice. We admit, we’d be more comfortable with a pred...

Father God: It is sometimes hard for us to understand what You do. We are in trouble. We want You to come rescue us right now, like the cavalry riding over a hill or the Lone Ranger appearing out of n...

Living in a society governed by technique conditions us to believe that in every way life is easier than it ever has been. Technique is the use of rational methods to maximize efficiency, and we...

I was born into this world with a tortured sensitivity. For long I have puzzled over the causes of my psychological anguish.

We are too anxious to be able to wait for fruit and time to ripen, so we take the shortcuts of robbery and violence, even the torture of little children; sin leads to crimes against both nature and ou...

Lord God, you are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and quick to show mercy and faithful love. Your compassion is for all you have made. We admit that this compassion is slow to come to life ...

Pastor: Oh God, we have not listened to you, and we have not walked in all of your commandments. We have spurned your statutes, and our souls have abhorred your laws. All: I have not followed you in...

Joseph’s brothers, meaning to harm him, sold him into Egypt, but in reality God sent him there so that he could save Jacob’s family and many others from death by starvation Robert E. Longacre, J...

Holy God, we are inspired by the boldness of people in the Bible, but we confess that we are often too afraid to be so bold. Our hearts are moved by the love and grace Jesus shared while he walked thi...

There was a time when adults were neatly categorized into one of two groups: you were either neurotic or psychotic. Psychotic meant that you were out of touch with reality and afraid; neurotic meant t...

Have you ever heard the term “Haole” before? I first heard about it while picking up surfing in High School. I knew it wasn’t exactly a positive label, but until recently I never knew what it meant. M...

In a surprisingly honest confession, the millennial writer Veronica Rae Saron shared this interesting fact in her 2016 article for Medium: Conversation after conversation, it has become more and mor...

On days when life is difficult and I feel overwhelmed, as I do fairly often, it helps to remember in my prayers that all God requires of me is to trust Him and be His friend. I find I can do that.

For some people, a lack of purpose and meaning in life can provide fertile ground for the development of panic attacks and phobias.

Pastor: “O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath. Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing; heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled. All: “My soul also is grea...

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

Almighty God, we confess our need of Your presence and Your guidance. We each have our hopes and expectations for what lies ahead, but only You can give us the strength and the wisdom we need. In life...

Holy God, we can be so full of fear at times – afraid of the unknown; afraid of what is beyond our control; afraid of what is strange to us. And we know that fear stops us in our tracks, hinders our a...

Anxiety is the interest paid on trouble before it is due.

According to the World Health Organization, one in thirteen globally suffers from anxiety. In the United States, one in five adults have a mental health condition. That’s over forty million Americans;...

Leader: We are people of the resurrection. Witnesses to God’s glorious victory in Jesus Christ, which brings peace and transforms the power structures of this world. But we also know that we live in ...

Context Between the Sending and Return of the Twelve The fate of John the Baptist appears in a Markan ‘sandwich,’ where the story is told almost as a detour between the sending (ἀποστέλλω) of the ...

We thank you, God our Father, that by your grace, mercy and love, expressed today in Word and Sacrament, You give us Your Son, the true bread from heaven and the fountain of living water. Strengthen u...

The strong hands of God twisted the crown of thorns into a crown of glory; and in such hands we are safe.

In his devotional guide on preparing for the rite of confession in the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the nineteenth-century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard says that true repentance from the persp...

Between the Sending and Return of the Twelve The fate of John the Baptist appears in a Markan ‘sandwich,’ where the story is told almost as a detour between the sending (ἀποστέλλω) of the Twelve (6...

The church, in general, has done a horrible job with mental illness. We have ignored it, pretended it doesn’t exist, or worse, acted as though all mental illness was a result of sin. Our obsession wit...

Call to Confession In Philippians four, we are called to take everything to God in prayer. This includes our inadequacies, our fears, our anxieties, our shortcomings, and our sins. Let us take our b...

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.

Studies indicate that females are more likely to experience anxiety (approximately a two-to-one ratio), and white Americans are more likely to be diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. “The diff...