From the front desk of the YMCA where I work during the early morning hours, I notice a lot of interesting T-shirt designs. On Monday of Thanksgiving week, a woman approaching the check-in scanner was wearing one that read, “Anxiety University.”
She had obviously forgotten her scan card, and as she approached the desk, she asked me to look her up in the system. As I did, I noticed the next line on her tee was highlighted by a rectangular border, like what can be found in many campus bookstores. It read, “Honors Program.”
Tony Tench
I chuckled inside to see her drag herself in for an early workout while representing one of the best-attended institutions in the land. While typing in her information, I asked, “So, what degree did you earn from Anxiety University?” A broad smile appeared on her face as she replied, “Oh my goodness, I definitely have a Ph.D. from there.”
I chuckled on, and she came through to encourage some endorphins to counteract the drain from the research she had put in on her upper-level degree.
Reflecting a bit on her screen-printed alma mater declaration, I thought she was just one in a large alumni association. There are plenty of reasons for us to be anxious these days. It is not necessary to make a list. Our hearts and minds are quick to enumerate the causes.
Much like the early church, when reading from Peter’s letter, “Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good?” Those early believers had to have answered, “Could we be any more persecuted for doing good?”
Peter was just setting them up. He knew how fast they would rip off a list of reasons for the anxiety inside them. They quickly related “mistreatment” to the “doing of good.” The gospel in 1 Peter 3:8 encouraged them to be sympathetic, loving, humble, to not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, to keep their tongues from deceitful speech and to seek peace and pursue it. But when they lived this way, the “powers that be” around them came down hard on their heads and caused them to suffer for “what is right.”
So, what’s a person to do when the anxiety producers pile up in our thinking? Are we to just give in and sign up for the next course in the Anxiety University catalogue? Some days, it can feel like that is what we are compelled to do.
“What’s a person to do when the anxiety producers pile up in our thinking?”
The next day, after considering these things, I went over to the Christian school where my granddaughter was to perform alongside other fifth graders in a Thanksgiving program they titled “An Attitude of Gratitude.” The students had rehearsed well, and everyone was proud of their clear, insightful and joy-filled presentation.
I was challenged by one of their songs to think about what it would take to drop out of the degree track at Anxiety U. They sang “I’m Grateful” by Teresa Jennings. It was tenderly expressed with heartfelt reverence. Intermittently, they came to a strategically placed stanza, “I see the good things and … I know their worth.” Later, “I see the wonderful things and … I know their worth.” And then, “I see blessings … and I know their worth.” Finally, they concluded, “And I’m grateful.”
And there it was at just the right time — the encouragement to drop out of Anxiety University for a while and enroll in a crash course at Gratitude College. It was good to hear the simple founding idea from which the Thanksgiving holiday came. Namely, to acknowledge the worth of good things around us. The change of scenery would do us good in a time when our nation seems to quickly produce enough disquietude to graduate a diploma mill of anxiety grads.
After bringing my grandchildren home from school later that day, with wonderful 7-year-old enthusiasm, my grandson described how his class had won the hot chocolate and cookie day reward because they brought in more items for care boxes than any other class in the school. He concluded by saying, “Best day ever!”
I simply cannot count the number of days across his young life when, having enjoyed a park or a game or family interaction, he has declared the day the “best day ever.” He may only be in first grade, but he is already in the honors program at Gratitude College. He quickly moves toward gratitude instead of anxiety.
That is precisely what the early church was learning as well. The way we combat anxiety, worry, disquietude and uneasiness in all its forms is to remember the “best day ever.” 1 Peter 3:15 declares that day to be the one in which we, “in our hearts, set apart Christ as Lord.”
We pray, therefore, our thanks to God for Jesus who, according to 1 Peter 3:18, “suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God.” And we pray, hopeful our embrace of this good news will help us to see the worth of the blessing we can be to one another as we wisely choose our next course of study.
Tony Tench works with the Lakelands Region YMCA of South Carolina and is former pastor of First Baptist Church of Shelby, N.C., and interim pastor of Poplar Springs Baptist Church in Shelby. He and his wife, Janet, enjoy living near their daughter’s family and serving with them at NewSpring Church in Greenwood, S.C.