ANXIETY IS A TOXIN. It is a poison that comes to paralyze you by saturating your thoughts and emotions. It does not lead you into purpose of God, but keeps you from fulfilling wonderful destiny He has for you.

Anxiety is a toxin--but God has an antidote. The writer of Psalm 94 called on this when he found himself in a difficult and oppressive situation. When he felt his foot slipping beneath him, he cried out to Lord and pressed into His mercy.

HESED is Hebrew word for “mercy” here. Some translations render it as “love.” It is counterpart to Greek word AGAPE, God-kind of love we find in New Testament. Hesed is a covenant word that speaks of love and mercy by which God has committed Himself to us. It is assurance of God’s faithfulness toward us, for God keeps His promises. When circumstances of our life start to slip and slide, covenant love and mercy of God comes to stabilize us, to strengthen us and keep us from falling.

Anxiety tries to overwhelm us with a multitude of worrisome thoughts and fill us with doubts. Someone has defined worry, very accurately, I think, as meditating on lies of devil. The enemy comes and whispers things into our ears to consume our thoughts and get us into fear. If we let ourselves meditate on them, we give life to them.

My wife calls these whispers “what if” voices: What if our car breaks down? What if we can’t pay for it? What if we get sick? What if something happens to our children? We used to pay quite a bit of attention to these what if voices-—and it held us back from trusting God more and knowing Him better.

The devil has a lot of what ifs, but why should we even listen to them? “For God has not given us spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1.7). The devil brings us a multitude of anxious thoughts, but God brings us His comforts: power, love and a sound mind.

As a state of being, quietness is in direct contrast to World we occupy and American Lifestyle altogether. The perpetual noise index is at its highest peak within our structured cities that now seem to stretch into endless waves of suburbia. There literally seems to be hum-buzz of noise in every scenario imaginable and it tenaciously seems to interfere with all efforts of finding any outside quietness.

The perception of quietness, as a relative state of being, must then lie within mind and soul of each man, woman, and child. Perhaps to become a comfort zone to some, only to be a torture to others. The dividing line seemingly depends upon consciousness of each human being. Quietness may be longed for by a few only to be shunned by many. Because quietness is often pushed away in blatant rejection within our social orders today from young to old; quietness as its own identity has become more illusive than ever.

In our modern everyday lifestyles we have opted to invite absence of quietness instead. Even Nature's quiet harmonies are surreptitiously defaulted by our own projections of life. The natural state of Nature and its peaceful quietness has become secondary within our demanding society. For it seems that newest of man's creative inventions have surmounted a noisy assault against what was once highly esteemed as our haven's of quietude. Unmistakably, there still remains a law of quietness, and that law is a self contained universal law unto itself. Therefore this law is only upheld by those who might see it in purity and light of its Creator.

Quietness, after all, is possible to find in middle of a busy bustling crowd. Quietness can also be found in mist of towering city buildings, as well as in solitude of a nursery room with a crying baby; or on knoll of a hill far away from all humanity. One can even find quietness in sanctuaries of commonness, or in many galleries of daily boredom. For truly, quietness is found in heart of it's possessor.