Tony Evans - Let it Go!: Breaking Free from Fear and Anxiety

LET IT

Breaking Free from Fear and Anxiety

Tony Evans

M OODY P UBLISHERS
CHICAGO

2005 by
A NTHONY T. E VANS

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Editor: Ali Childers
Interior Design: Ragont Design
Cover Design: Smartt Guys design
Cover Photo: Steve Cole/Photodisc

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Evans, Anthony T.

Let it go! : breaking free from fear and anxiety / Tony Evans.

p. cm.

ISBN-10: 0-8024-4378-8

ISBN-13: 978-0-8024-4378-6

1. AnxietyReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. FearReligious aspectsChristianity. I. Title.

BV4908.5.E93 2005

248.86dc22

2005017671

We hope you enjoy this book from Moody Publishers. Our goal is to provide high-quality, thought-provoking books and products that connect truth to your real needs and challenges. For more information on other books and products written and produced from a biblical perspective, go to www.moodypublishers.com or write to:

Moody Publishers
820 N. LaSalle Boulevard
Chicago, IL 60610

7 9 10 8 6

Printed in the United States of America

B REAKING F REE
FROM
E MOTIONAL
S TRONGHOLDS

P erhaps you have heard the story of the man who was hiking alone in the mountains when he slipped and fell off a cliff. The only thing that kept him from plunging to his death down a deep gorge was a tree growing from the side of the cliff. As he fell, the hiker grabbed a limb and hung on for dear life.

Clinging tightly to the tree limb, the man began shouting desperately, hoping that someone might be coming along the trail behind him. Help! Help! Is there anyone up there? But no answer came back.

Finally, as he neared exhaustion, and his grip on the tree limb began to weaken, the hiker yelled again in total desperation, Is there anyone up there?

This time, a booming voice answered, Yes, Im here.

The hiker was elated. This is great! Who are you?

Its the Lord.

Oh, thank You, Lord! the hiker gasped. What do you want me to do?

Let go, and Ill catch you.

But the terrified hiker was too afraid to let go of the limb. So he cried out again, Is there anyone up there?

The Lord answered again, I said, let go of the limb, and Ill save you.

But the hiker couldnt bring himself to let go of the only piece of security he thought he had. So after thinking about it for a minute, he shouted, Is there anyone else up there?

That fictional hiker is like a lot of real-life Christians who are clinging desperately to all manner of emotional security blankets. These believers often think their twisted-up emotions are their source of security, when in fact, these emotional problems are the very things keeping them from being really free.

What Christians in this situation need to do is what the hiker in our story needed to do: Let go of that which cannot rescue them anyway and trust God to honor His promises.

My goal for this booklet is to help people in bondage to various emotions and anxieties break free through the truth of Gods Word and the power of the Holy Spirit. Well address the anxiety first, and then I want to give you biblical examples and patterns for handling the emotional storms of life that are sure to come your way.

The word I will be using for these traps (into which even Christians can fall) is stronghold. My prayer is that Christians in these predicaments will learn to understand and apply the Bible to their lives in ways that they can let go of any emotional stronghold the Enemy may have built in their lives.

If you or someone you care about is in the grip of an emotional stronghold such as anger, depression, fear, worryor even some sort of substance abuseI am here to tell you that there is freedom available in Jesus Christ.

The worlds word for things that hold people hostage is addiction. We hear it said that people are addicted to drugs, alcohol, sex, or whatever it may be. The problem I have with this word is the implication it often has that we are powerless victims of our circumstances.

In other words, calling something an addiction suggests that we have an excuse for what were doing, either because we dont have the ability to break it, someone else caused it and thus it isnt our fault, or we have bad genes or a bad environment that set us up for this problem. Some people may even say their addiction has all of these elements.

Now I know that many psychologists, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals would argue that the concept of addiction doesnt mean there is no way out. But for our purposes in this booklet, Im not interested in what the professionals say nearly as much as I am in the popular perception of what it means to have an addictionfor two reasons.

The first reason is that I believe the average person thinks of an addiction as something that is somehow not the victims responsibility, which often helps the person dodge the real issue. The second reason is that calling something an addiction doesnt address the spiritual dimension of the problem, which is needed to find the answer.

The word stronghold takes us to the real issue because it takes us to our spiritual makeup and to the Word of God. When we get the spiritual part of the equation fixed, the emotional and the physical parts will begin to fall in line.

The New International Version of the Bible says, The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:4). A stronghold is like a fortress the Enemy has built on your turf, which is why the New American Standard Bible translates this word as fortresses.

Our Enemy, of course, is Satan, who can build strongholds in our minds and hearts if we allow him to gain a foothold in our lives. The Devil is a relentless Enemy who is not content just to conquer territory in your life. He wants to erect strongholds, which he can then use as his base of operations to attack you whenever he feels like it. When you have an enemy who can take refuge in his stronghold and come out from it to attack you at will, you wont get anywhere until you tear down that stronghold and leave the Enemy with no place to hide.

Our emotions are particularly vulnerable to satanic attack because emotions are feelings that have no intellect of their own. An emotion is a deep-down, often immediate and intense, reaction to something that happens to us. Thats why we talk about our gut-level feelings, for example, or say of someone who has upset us, He really burns me up.