CHRIST AND THE PERSISTENT HUMAN SPIRIT

I remember maybe a month or so ago seeing a message on Facebook from my stepmom that seemed to indicate that my dad might not be feeling too well. I called him up and he told me that, out of no where, his heart rate soared and he felt sick.

Naturally, he was worried it had something to do with his heart. But then he told me something I didn't know. He said "it could be my anxiety. I have really bad anxiety, just in case you have it."

I was baffled, but I didn't let my voice make it seem like I was. You see, when I was still a baby, my parents were divorced. Subsequently, I spent most of my time with my mom. My dad had weekend visitations. I never realized that he was anxious.

I myself has struggled with anxiety probably all my life, but most noticeably in the past 5 years.  A few articles seem to state that anxiety could be genetic, but no one is really sure.

A lot of religious people seem to think that anxiety just goes away when you put your faith in Christ. While it does feel a lot better to suffer with it under Christ, it still doesn't go away. That is because something in my brain tells me to overthink. I've literally had moments when I've just been sitting down laughing with my friends. I've had to get up, go to my room, and just sit there. I feel overcome with panic, specifically during rough patches in my life.

This all got a little better when I finally accepted Christ in my life. However, it didn't go away. I still find myself overthinking things to the point where I think I've offended someone and I really haven't. I've also come to the point where I get really defensive when someone seems to make me feel unintelligent or wrong for something I have no business feeling wrong for.

When people do that to me, I always want to cut them off. I always want to act differently around them. I want to be short with them and just let them have their way. But I find that, interestingly, I persist. Even if I feel like I've embarrassed myself or I feel like what someone did to me was wrong, I can't seem to just walk away.

Let me give you a further example. Let's say you used to be a part of a group or organization before you left your location. About a year or two later you come back to your location and try to be a part of or help the group that you were a part of before you leave. Each time you reach out to them with sincere advice or offer to do something, it isn't accepted, but it also isn't denied. You start to feel like they never take you up on your offer so you'll just stop offering to help.

But then you realize you can't do it. Even if you don't have a strong bond to the group or don't know some people in the group, you find that you can't not offer to help.

I sometimes hate that I have this trait, but I chalk it up to not fulfilling the lust of the flesh. And the crazy thing is, you can ask anyone who was in my life a few years ago and they would tell you that I could walk away from someone who wronged me at the drop of a hat. But I have NO CONTROL OVER THIS. Does anyone else have this trait?

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." - II Corinthians 5:17

I've seen preachers stand up and say that you should leave behind people who do this and do that but I find myself unable to do so because I feel like I may be the only light in someone's life.

I've always wondered if this trait is present because I have Christ in my life. I wonder if it is His persistent spirit living inside of me that refuses to give up on people no matter how hard I want to try to avoid and walk away from people who wrong me.

Remember the Gospel? Jesus forgave those who were literally killing Him as He spoke. The people who He could have given up on are the same people He asked God to forgive because they didn't know what they were doing.

What an amazing theory.