When I taught first-graders to read, I needed to consistently find material that helped them discover fluency. Otherwise their reading would be halting and rocky--a recipe for misery. Throw too many new words at a student and he'll freeze up; give him tools to decode new words--managing how many he meets at a time--and he will build his fluency of response slowly and steadily. Success will encourage and sustain new learning.There is no greater gift from teacher to student than to uncover the power of moving through words with ease of comprehending. It turns dread into delight.
As adults, our circumstances can be a bit like that of a young reader faced with the challenge of new words. We're faced with new challenges continually, sometimes coming at a rate that threatens to overwhelm us. Anxiety about pending circumstances opens the door to dread; dread catapults us into despair. How do we develop a fluency of response that keeps anxiety at bay?
Ask God for help: Young readers need a teacher who sees the big picture of reading and leads them through it. We need God who sees the big picture of our circumstances and leads us through to the other side.
Face the worst that can happen: Anxiety creates a breach in our strength of mind by taunting the worst. We can turn that on its head by sitting with God, talking with him about worst-case scenario. Like Jesus in the Garden, sweating his pending death on the cross, we can ask God to take away what lies ahead. And then, also like Jesus, offer that God's will be done and hold on to his promise that he walks through suffering with us.
Believe that strength of mind requires exceeding effort on our part: Virtually anything we do fluently has required energy, training and determination. The ability to stay out from under the harness of anxiety slavery comes with that same valiant effort, over and over, giving fluency of response a chance to become one of our most useful God-tools.Anxiety will always be a cloud on the horizon of our minds. It will never cease its determination to create a breach in our strength of mind. Like young readers, we can work hard on our fluency of response.
Just as reading can move from dread into delight, our circumstances can be met with the power and company of God, restoring our joy and giving us all we need for the journey.
Comments are welcome at feedyourstrength@gmail.com.
