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From Fear to Faith

All that stands between anxiety and peace is you! Your actions can and will make the difference. Plus, Jesus is with you and is waiting for you to grow closer to him on a personal level. And, Mary is also with you and wants to get to know you better. She wants to help the relationship between Jesus and you grow deeper. You have the faith (even if it’s weak) that will allow you to start trusting more. All that’s missing is some behavior modification on your part. To complete the journey, you just have to change some of the negative habits that are dragging you down.

I’ve come up with five steps—the Five P’s of Peace—that will enable you to complete the journey from fear to faith. When put into practice, the Five P’s will truly bring you PEACE!

Prepare: Do what you can to solve your problem.

Present: Focus on the present; don’t worry about the future.

Pray: Speak to the Lord each day.

Participate: Take advantage of the Church’s gifts, including the Bible, the sacraments, and Eucharistic Adoration.

Prize: Keep your eye on the prize…focus on heaven!

I also am a weak person, and there is no way I could break free from anxiety on my own.
I need lots of help and simple, easy-to-follow steps. That’s what this approach provides. Whenever I begin to feel I’m too weak to overcome my anxiety, I turn to the words of someone else who thought he was weak:

“…I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong” (see 2 Corinthians 12:10).

Saint Paul concluded it’s OK to have weaknesses. Everyone is weak in some way. The beautiful thing about letting the Lord help us overcome anxiety is that he does most of the work. While we are still expected to do what we can, Jesus will take our efforts and multiply them greatly. The problem with many secular “overcoming anxiety” methods is that they don’t include God in the mix. If I live in fear and worry about everything, there’s a good chance I’m not strong enough to follow the steps needed to break free from anxiety. That’s why we need the help of Jesus and the Blessed Mother. If you need some additional encouragement, recall the words the angel Gabriel spoke to Mary: “Nothing will be impossible for God” (Luke 1:37).

Excerpted from From Fear to Faith, a Worrier’s Guide to Discovering Peace by Gary Zimak, © 2014 Liguori Publications, product code 824920. To order, visit Liguori.org

Published inReflections