Article review “Insights on Anxiety from Charles Spurgoen”

A great problem we all deal with from time to time is being anxious. An article called, “Insights on Anxiety from Charles Spurgoen” written by Elizabeth R. Skoglund gives us some help with fear and anxiety. We will see five things Spurgoen has to say about anxiety and facing the fears.

            The purpose of this article is to get a better understanding of what anxiety is and how it related to the Bible and Christians. It is also important to know how to face the fears as they are real fears of real people. The author wants to help us to see what the famous preacher, Spurgeon, has to say so we can we can understand how we should look at fear and seek to overcome it.

            Since we all face fears and periods of anxiety I thoroughly enjoyed this article. It is relevant in a time when things are getting tense and seems like fear is greater these days. There are a lot of “what ifs” in life that we have to go through. The author is good at telling us who to go to when facing those fears. God and Christian friends are the best way to handle what life brings our way. Fear is not always a sin, as is not trusting the Lord. The article gives examples of King David being afraid, and even Jesus experiencing fear on the night of His betrayal. The Bible even tells us to have a fear of the Lord. Having a holy fear of the Lord is a good thing but fears of doubt and confusion are not. It is easy to let fear control you but we must not let it, we must seek to control fear.

            The Author gives us first an introduction using examples of people with fears in their lives. She then tells us how fear is a part of everyone’s lives including that of the great preacher Charles Spurgoen. From there five points are highlighted to talk about anxiety. First is a reminder that even God’s greatest followers have been afraid throughout history and in the Bible; King David is the example. Second we see that Jesus went through a period of fear in the Garden before His death on the cross. If our own Lord could be afraid then we sure cannot expect we will never suffer from anxiousness. The third distinguishes between being afraid sometimes and living in anxiety, the latter is worse because it can harm a person. The fourth point shows us that not all anxiety is sinful but we must also realize some is sinful. It is important to try not to be anxious, but expect it will happen. The final point made is that the fear of the Lord is good cause God commands us to fear Him. The last things the article talks about are causes of fear and facing those fears. The message of the article was good and informative. It helped me to have new insight into the psychological problem of anxiety.