Chronic Sins Might be the Cause of Your Chronic Anxiety

Through fasting, God healed my anxiety by delivering me from the sins behind it—idolatry, gluttony, and maybe a little pride.

Through fasting, God healed my anxiety by delivering me from the sins behind it—idolatry, gluttony, and maybe a little pride.

Photo by Christopher Ott on Unsplash

I’d suffered from anxiety for the past year.

Occasionally, it came fast and suffocating—my heart raced, my body chilled, and I struggled to breathe.

Most of the time, it simply spilled all over me, nibbling me inside for hours.

But it had a schedule—it always happened in the afternoon, always after my meal of the day.

“For I confess my iniquity;
I am full of anxiety because of my sin.”

Psalm 38:18

God answered my prayer

I’d been praying to God to heal me from this chronic anxiety for a month or two.

It did get better after I started reading Bible and praying first thing in the morning. But in the afternoon, my anxiety still visited like we had an appointment, even though the affliction lessened.

So for a while, I thought God had answered me by easing my anxiety.

I thought that was the best I could get.

But God never let you settle.

Last Sunday, He revealed the cause of this chronic suffering and healed me completely.

And the cause is sin—food idolatry and gluttony.

Photo by Szabo Viktor on Unsplash

Unaware sins behind mental illness

To clarify, this picture above does not do me justice.

I eat only one meal a day, and go to the gym five days a week.

A sin regarding food was the last thing I could ever thought of committing.

I eat no sugar, no fries, no salty snacks, no rice, no cereal, no processed food—and basically just eat what is natural, anti-inflammatory, and nutritious.

Broccoli, cauliflower, salmon, egg, avocado, lemon, berries, spinach, kale, yogurt, almond milk, quinoa, lentil, flaxseed, chia seed—

yep, you know that whole package.

Moreover, eating healthy and working out regularly aren’t even hard for me.

So how come that I idolized food and committed gluttony?

How come that these sins afflicted me with anxiety for so long?

God enlightened me

God enlightened me that my anxiety originated from food idolatry and gluttony, and this enlightenment delivered me from anxiety right away.

So how?

Like I mentioned earlier, before my deliverance, I already noticed a pattern of my anxiety—it happened in the afternoon after my only meal of the day and lasted until sundown.

Sometimes the anxiety deprived me of my productivity so much that its after-effect, guilt, took me over until bed time.

But this notice didn’t save me. I never thought of putting the blame on food or my intermittent fasting.

Well, guess what?

Food was not to blame—but my dependence on food for joy and comfort was.

What I did to be enlightened

Why hadn’t God enlightened me earlier?

Since I’d been suffering for a year and praying about it for a month or two?

The answer is: I didn’t cooperate.

You see, when we want God to do something for us, He is the one to make it happen, but we must obey first.

And what does it mean to obey?

We cooperate.

Photo by Jackson David on Unsplash

And in my case, I cooperated through fasting last Sunday.

Here we go again, fasting. One of the classic topic among Christians.

You might ask, what made you realize you need to fast longer?

For the past month, I’d been seeing and hearing the topic of “fast and pray” in multiple ways—Youtube videos, podcasts, online Christian communities, etc.

But I assure you, I was active on these channels before last Sunday but never saw “fasting” anywhere.

The Will of God was obvious—He wanted me to fast.

Fasting happened to be the area I knew little about, mostly because I couldn’t—I probably still can’t—make sense of.

I’d been learning about it during the past month, since it popped up everywhere, and had tried to really understand why.

But I just couldn’t understand.

Not only I couldn’t see the point of fasting and didn’t believe starving would bring me closer to God, but I also feared hunger.

I hated the feeling of an empty stomach. I have a stomach problem, and it hurts whenever I eat irregularly—

at least that was my excuse. Lord, forgive me; I physically can’t.

You may have spotted many red flags in my narrative—I feared hunger more than God, I was trapped in intellectual arguments and kept justifying my disobedience.

But if you have read this article I wrote at the end of April, 2023, you know I did understand how to obey God without understanding:

Why and How to Keep God’s Commandments When You Don’t Understand
Obedience comes after love. Understanding comes after obedience.almeralicehe.medium.com

So eventually I obeyed. I fasted.

Enlightened during fasting

Photo by Emre on Unsplash

I prayed something, ah, just a bit crafty that Sunday morning.

I asked God to give me a sign that He wanted me to fast the whole day today and I would obey. And I asked the sign to be—

let someone I was going to meet at church today to mention the topic, or even just the word, “fasting.”

From big service to small group gathering, what happened was, nobody mentioned “fasting.”

So I went home, somehow glad.

But then an an-hour-long video about fasting popped up in my Youtube feed. I clicked on it and started watching. The longer I watched, the more I believed God was telling me to fast.

I was supposed to eat my one meal of the day around 2pm, but I skipped it. I did things to distract myself from hunger, from the unpleasant bitterness in my mouth.

It was not until 7-ish pm when I got up to do some house cleaning that God reminded me—hey, your anxiety didn’t come today!

I’d survived her visiting hours from 4–7pm.

I’d breezed through it.

My stomach was empty but my heart was light and my soul felt relieved.

And right away, the enlightenment poured on me like rains after years of drought—

I was anxious because I sought joy and comfort in food.

I lived for that one meal each day.

My pleasure depended on it.

I counted on it to save and make the day.

That meal had become my god, and I’d been worshipping it without me realizing.

Photo by Lidye on Unsplash

I ate without abstinence—

I ate the big meal, drank nutritious smoothie, snacked on nuts and chips—I ate so much that I almost vomited.

And that didn’t just happen once.

I took advantage of my four-hour eating window and I was almost afraid for it to pass.

I was afraid to lose the comfort and joy it brought me. I was unwilling to face my life outside the eating window.

I thought about what to eat before bed and waited for the afternoon—

and yes, anxiety choked me as soon as my eating window closed.

Instant deliverance after enlightenment

Now, how does all of that sound?

Sick. Enslaved. Imprisoned.

I was like a slave.

Not only I committed gluttony, I also defiled the Holy Spirit that lives in my body, for only God can be the source of joy, and for only God I live.

I thought because I ate healthy and worked out like an athlete, I was better than those who eat burgers and fries, who are slowly killing themselves with sugar, who never go to the gym, who are obese and dying from health issues—

I was not better. I too sought joy and comfort in food. I too ate as if my life depended on it.

More than that, because of my disciplined diet and workout, pride had also taken root in me. It blinded me from seeing the cause of my problems.

Idolatry, gluttony, pride.

All these three schemed against me, dragging me into anxiety over and over, consuming me, eating me away.

I was not the eater. My sins ate me.

Until God enlightened me and broke the demonic strongholds, all of a sudden, I was freed.

“Go eat.”

At that point, I almost forgot I had asked for a sign earlier that day until God spoke to me:

“I didn’t give you the sign. Now, go eat.”

Photo by Jack Sharp on Unsplash

I cooked and ate. And that was the most peaceful meal I’d had in a long time. I filled my stomach, rested a bit, and went back to do things, satisfied and calm.

Joy filled my heart, not my stomach.

Other than hearing God’s voice, the reasons I was sure it was God speaking are:

• I was enlightened and delivered. The purpose was fulfilled.

• I prayed for a sign humbly and ready to obey without any intention to test Him.

• He didn’t give me the sign.

• I should trust that He heard me and His answer was No—instead of doubting and searching signs I didn’t ask for.

I had prayed, for a sign and a deliverance, and God had answered both.

“Then the spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly, and came out of him. And he became as one dead, so that many said, “He is dead.”

But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.

And when He had come into the house, His disciples asked Him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?”

So He said to them, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”

Mark 9:26–29

Dear Readers,

I hope my testimony of deliverance inspire you in some way, whether you’re struggling with eating disorder, anxiety, or depression.

You might not idolize food but rather relationships or yourself.

Your gluttony might not aim for food but weed, drug, alcohol, sex, money, or fame.

Secular self-help methods and therapies will not set you free.

They might uplift you for a while but they cannot transform you.

They cannot give you a brand new life.

You cannot be born again through self-help—otherwise, why did Jesus die for our sins?

Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Ephesians 2:8–9

Only God the Creator Who breathes life into you has such power and grace. He’s the way, the truth, and the life.

Please share this to those who might need it.

Leave a comment if you’re suffering from similar problems and want a prayer for enlightenment and deliverance.

God has done it for me, and He will do it for you.

With Love,

Alice

Here’s a speech from C.S Lewis who spoke much better than me on the lie of self-help:

Dear Readers,

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With Love,

Alice