In his book The Good and Beautiful Life, James Bryan Smith writes of something we all instinctively know, but rarely intellectually start our day with.
Life is full of Unmet Expectations.
And Unmet Expectations often lead us to Anger or Anxiety. For me, it’s usually Anxiety.
I thought the day was going to go this way, but something threw a wrench in it, and my fight, flight, freeze instincts kicked in. (We’ve got all 3 sometimes, don’t we? It’s often just a matter of order).
When we encounter an Unmet Expectation, our Anxiety or Anger usually stems from fear and the delusion that we have control.
I thought the day was going to be This and now it’s That, and now THINGS are ruined – and not things just confined to this day, but extending to my life and my family’s. That’s the way we can spiral.
I think there’s a cliche for this – a mountain out of a molehill. Or, worst case, it could be a mountain out of a mountain, because we all face volcanoes.
And of course, that’s the problem.
We don’t know what will turn into a volcano, and we’ve faced them before; thus we prepare for any Unmet Expectation to turn into a volcano as a protective instinct. That’s Fear’s Playground.
Actually, the molehills rarely turn into the volcanoes, and the volcanoes that completely reshape the course of our lives often explode when, where, and how we least expect. At least for me.
Now, considering all that, we’re still left with this stubborn thing: our consuming need for control and the desire and effort to establish it.
And it’s that fierce desire for control + our experience that control is beyond our grasp that = Daily Anxiety.
Of course, Scripture says a) we can’t control things and b) we can’t control things and c) we can’t control things.
God does.
Does that get through to us? Viscerally, it rarely does to me.
So what do we do?
James Bryan Smith has a helpful response.
He calls negative stories we tell ourselves (and our bodies tell ourselves) “False Imperative Narratives” (FINS) and their T-Cell fighters “Kingdom Narratives.” (KN)
So here they are:
False Imperative Narrative: “I am alone.” Kingdom Narrative: “You are never alone. Jesus is with you always.”
FIN: “I must be in control all of the time.” Kingdom Narrative: “Jesus is in Control.”
FIN: “Something terrible will happen if I make a mistake.” Kingdom Narrative: “Mistakes happen all of the time and things usually work out fine.”
FIN: “Life must always be fair and just.” Kingdom Narrative: “Life is not always fair and just, but God gets the last word.”
FIN: “I need to be perfect all the time.” Kingdom Narrative: “Jesus accepts me – even though I am not perfect.”
Pretty good, huh? Also, all Scripture.
I battle every single one of those FINS, but every single one of those Kingdom Narratives is Scriptural, and oh Lord, how I pray that I would, that we would, that You would drill those into us so that the FINS fade, pushed away by God’s kingdom emerging from the soil of our souls.
One of the fav parables we tell non-Christians is about building a life on the rock vs. the sand. It’s almost always used as a proselytizing parable.
But our lives are often built on sand, as well. Because when Unmet Expectations hit us, our house doesn’t exactly stand rockish, does it?
We have all kinds of ways of revealing the sand holding up our house, and a couple are anxiety and anger.
We need to ask God, daily, to U-Haul us to a new home on the rock. He will, but once he shows up with his truck, we suddenly find it tough to empty our house and say goodbye to all the rooms of control in our old place.
Oh, we love those rooms don’t we. Their terrible views of the sea, their dark presence, their leaks in the ceiling. Somehow we love that. And we hate it. But we cling to it.
That’s me, at least.
Honestly, I will, by God’s grace, go to my grave saying “nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling,” but those FINS will follow me to the grave like a ghost that won’t be satisfied. It certainly seems that way. Maybe for you too.
And yet you and I have to remind ourselves constantly of the Kingdom Narratives and pray that the God who ushered in that kingdom will put it into us a way that makes Unmet Expectations less disorienting.
NOW…
Having said all that…
When I read that passage about FINS from Smith’s book, I thought, “This is so good. Thank you, God, for how wonderful this is.”
And for about five or six hours, I felt the peace of living in that Kingdom Narrative.
But then unresolved trauma and my panic disorder completely flattened me. Everything about everything good I’d read and felt faded into not even the background. It was just gone. The only thing there was the Panic. Again, for no apparent reason.
And that’s the way it often is for us with this disease.
And I realized, once again, that I have to constantly add a caveat to any post like this that, yes, unmet expectations and all those things can definitely lead to anxiety and yes, repeating Kingdom Narratives can help combat that — but I have to be honest that many of us are dealing with a clinical medical disease, as well.
It wouldn’t just be naive to ignore that, it would be profoundly damaging, because a) we won’t get the medical help we need if we’re convinced that a Kingdom Narrative will just magically heal us and b) we’ll be incredibly discouraged when the Kingdom Narrative doesn’t help, because we’ll say, “NOOOOO, I must not be in the kingdom!” And then things will get even worse, mentally.
So I’m always of two minds posting things like this.
I firmly believe in the power of Scripture and passages like Smith’s to help in our battle with anxiety (just like exercise or other things), but I also firmly believe that Clinical Anxiety and Depression and Panic Disorder etc are Medical Diseases and just as some of us have a bit of tendonitis that can be wrapped and treated simply, others need surgery to resolve our damaged tendon.
Likewise, our anxiety can exist within a range and it could be that a Kingdom Narrative is all we need, but there’s a possibility that our medical disease also needs Medication or something of that sort.
God has many ways of helping us with all things, and he uses many things, and I hope this post is just that, but a session of therapy might actually be more helpful, depending on whether you have the clinical disease or not.
So, as always — as much as I’d like to say, here’s your answer, right here, in this post — I’d be derelict and dishonest if I didn’t include the links below and provide these kinds of caveats that might seem quite nonspiritual, but actually, I think are things God actually wants us to think about.
As the Christian psychiatrist Dr. Brian Briscoe said, medication can be one of God’s agents of mercy.
Smith’s Kingdom Narratives is one such mercy, and so if it helps you, amen, and if it doesn’t, don’t lose heart!
Instead, remember that you might have clinical Anxiety which is a disease, and maybe it’s time to click on one of the links below. And also remember the Kingdom Narratives. Medication, Therapy and Kingdom Narratives aren’t mutually exclusive. They can all help us.
So…. if you struggle with social anxiety disorder, depression, anxiety, or any other such medical conditions — for readers in the United States…
Find a psychiatrist here.
Find a therapist here.
For readers, internationally, seek help from a local resource.
For salvation, Christ and Christ alone.
