Anxieties of the Day, Anxieties of the Night

(the fourth sermon of a four part series)

a sermon by J. Michael Smith

Grace United Methodist Church, Urbana, IL

preached April 24, 2005

Text:  I Peter 5:6-11

Day and Night as Symbols of Coping with Two Different Kinds of Anxiety

There is the anxiety of the day…

and there is the anxiety of the night. 

The day is for working.  The night is for waiting.  Jesus said, “I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day:  the night cometh, when no one can work.”  The day is for working.  The night is for waiting.

The Psalmist said, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”  The night is when we wait for the morning. 

The day is a time to gather our resources, make our plans, execute our skills, start our journeys, make our investments, articulate our thoughts, flex our strength, apply our knowledge, take our risks, and initiate our growth.  Daytime is for doing our best.

At night, we follow the lead of the Psalmist who said, “…I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the watches of the night…”  In the night, all we can do is wait, or pray, or grieve, or hope.  The Psalmist wrote:  “I call to remembrance my song in the night.”  The night, symbolically, is the time when we can do nothing:  no work of ours will matter.  The “night” is when I find myself at that point in life when nothing I contrive or do will make much difference.  In the night, I simply try to remember “my song” and hope in its trueness until the morning comes. 

We can cry day or night.  But symbolically speaking, the cries of the day beckon us to turn our minds to our work and responsibilities.  The cries of the night, on the other hand, render us totally and utterly dependent on God’s work.

When we speak of the anxieties of the day or of the night, we are not talking about times that can be distinguished on the clock.  The anxieties of the day can occur anytime on the clock, just as the anxieties of the night could occur at high noon.  The anxieties of the day and night are not distinguished by chronos time, but by whether or not they are anxieties that call us to work or to wait.

All Anxieties are Holy in the Beginning

All anxiety has its origin in God.  All anxiety starts with a holy purpose:  God intends to bless us, to protect us, to enrich us.  The anxieties of the day are all those anxieties in which God is prompting us to do something.  The anxieties of the night are all those anxieties in which God is prompting us to trust him to do something.

The Three Anxieties of the Night

There are three primary anxieties of the night.  And in the company of these three anxieties, all we can do is wait.  While we wait, we can pray, we can cry, we can sing, we can hope, we can become empty, we can fast.  But we cannot do anything ourselves to resolve what makes us anxious in the night. 

The three primary anxieties of the night are these:

1.      We cannot avoid death.

2.      We cannot make another person love us.

3.      We cannot invent our own purpose for living.

Facing death, being loved, and having a purpose in life are all sources of enormous anxiety for every human being.  But they are all anxieties of the night because each of us is fundamentally helpless to resolve them by our own powers.  Dying…being unloved…lacking purpose for life…these anxieties are universal.  They are the source of countless tears.  And the weeping endures through the night.  And our only hope for resolution is by the grace of God, the gift of the morning sun, and the infusion of new joy because of what God alone provides.

The three anxieties of the night—rooted in the truths that we will die, that we must be loved, and that life requires some purpose—are holy anxieties, inviting us to trust God, to discover a humble spirit, and to embark on a journey of the soul. 

If we try to resolve the anxieties of the night by our own machinations, we will poison our lives.  Our thinking will become distorted and our relationships perverted.  The anxieties themselves will morph from being holy into being toxic. 

The truth is, I will die, someday.  The knowledge of that is an anxiety of the night.  I also know that everyone who matters to me will die, someday.  And the shadows of those premonitions evoke the anxieties of the night in me.  If, in the shadows of death, I seek comfort and relief from anything or anyone less than Almighty God, then I am living in a world of illusion.  I am lying to myself.  I’m crazy. 

If I think I can make another person love me, I’ve been duped.  And I’m going to make myself and probably some other people mighty miserable conniving plans that won’t work. 

If I think I can pick my own purpose for my life, my life will be a failure.  I can only make a difference in the world around me to the extent that God blesses me, and to the end that others truly need what I have to offer.  My purpose in life is only secondarily about me, what I want, or what I choose.  It is primarily about the gifts God has given me, and the ways my neighbors need me to love them. 

If I try to relieve my anxieties about death by denying the reality of death, or ignoring it, or flirting with it, or speeding it along, or rationalizing it—my holy anxieties turn toxic.  And toxic anxiety attacks me on every front:  my body, my mental health, my spirituality, my relationships. 

If I try to relieve my anxieties about being loved by letting myself be abused by another person, by hurrying into a relationship, by sexual promiscuity, by trying to control or manipulate the other person, or by becoming cynical and dropping out—my holy anxieties turn toxic and attack me on every front:  I suffer physically, I get a little crazy (or a lot), my spirituality flounders, and my relationships fail.

If I try to relieve my anxieties about having no satisfying or guiding purpose in life by living my life on the fast track, or living a second hand life by mimicking someone else’s purpose, or giving up and making my life mostly about me, or substituting for purpose with possessions and prosperity—my holy anxieties turn toxic and attack me on every front:  my body, my mind, my soul, and my relationships will all be diminished.

The wise know that the anxieties of the night bid us to let go and let God provide in God’s good time.

Getting to Work on the Anxieties of the Day

The anxieties of the day, on the other hand, require us to work, to apply ourselves, to think, to strategize, to collaborate, to improve ourselves, tend our environment, and nurture our relationships.  The anxieties of the day inspire us to learn, to mature, to develop, to achieve. 

The anxieties of the day are all those anxieties that we can do something about:  money, health, work, family, friendships, communication, the environment, politics, where we live, the organizations to which we belong…

The anxieties of the day alert us to legitimate dangers and distractions and disturbances.  The anxieties of the day prod us and tease us to get the very most out of this one, precious life God has given us.  The anxieties of the day make us restless and energize us to adventure and journey.  The anxieties of the day prompt us to take action before something becomes a serious problem.  The anxieties of the day are the bells calling us to go to work:  think, act, collaborate, invent, experiment, persist, invite, communicate, relax, pause, initiate, compromise, invest, divest, dig, laugh…

If I feel the anxieties of the day, but don’t want to work, I can repress the anxieties, I can blame others and demand that they do the work, I can get aggressive and violent and try to get the work done in a hurry, I can fret and worry instead of doing something about the situation, I can substitute talk for action, I can distract myself and hope the issue will go away on its own, I can work myself into a mental or physical case study, I can simply just not grow up…

When I feel the anxieties of the day but refuse or neglect to do the right work at the right time, my holy anxieties turn toxic.  Holy anxiety helps me address the issues at hand.  Toxic anxiety attacks me physically and mentally and spiritually and it usually starts a domino effect—causing me to injure the people around me in some way.

Practical Suggestions for Coping with Anxiety

I want to finish this sermon by offering some simple, practical suggestions on how each of us can handle our anxieties in healthy ways rather than in toxic ways.

1.      Give God thanks for the presence of the anxiety.  Treat it as a gift, not a curse.

2.      Take ten deep breaths and relax all muscles.  Make the body an ally.

3.      Figure out whether the anxieties are of the night or of the day.

4.      Recount the ways you have poisoned similar anxieties in the past.  How have you mishandled them?  Know yourself.  Pray to God to help you avoid those common errors this time.

5.      If they are anxieties of the night, develop a spiritual plan to help you let go and trust God:  prayer?  Song?  Worship?  Spiritual counsel?  Support group?  Bible reading?  Follow through on the plan.

6.      If they are anxieties of the day, make a realistic assessment of the issue and develop a realistic plan for meeting the issue head on.

7.      Work to expand your resources, spiritual resources for anxieties of the night, your own skills, knowledge, and growth for anxieties of the day.

8.      Follow the plan.  And if it doesn’t work, learn and grow nevertheless.  Adapt and change.

9.      Remember to tap into the wisdom and resources of others at every step.

10.  Remember to tap into your own experiences, strengths, and resources at every step.