I just want to share this testimony to glorify our Lord Jesus and encourage the family of God. Shortly after receiving the Holy Ghost into my heart at Still Waters Camp in August of 2011, I began my first true trial as a born-again Christian.
Just two weeks after the camp, I temporarily moved away from my hometown for an internship. I’d been a good student and won a competitive spot with a big company. At the time I didn’t understand why, but I began to develop a fear of choosing the wrong thing to do as a career. Although that is an important decision for a young man to make, I now see that it was a spirit of anxiety that was sneaking in to my life.
Slowly, I began to worry more and more about making decisions instead of trusting the Lord to lead me. It affected my everyday life, causing depression and a deep, constant heartache. For the most part, I would function normal, able to suppress the feeling to make it through work and school and accomplish what I needed to for the day, but I had no joy for anything. That feeling would worsen, coming and going for months, which turned to years. Often it would manifest in a full-blown anxiety attack, leaving me sobbing in confusion. I was so frustrated that I couldn’t shake this feeling of anxiety and hopelessness, and I felt like it was robbing me of my happiness. Even when I was getting married, all I felt was pressure about my future instead of being happy with all that the Lord had blessed me with.
For nearly four years I pressed the battle, just getting in the Word to calm my nerves. I would jump in my car and drive down the road with a tape on. Sometimes the feelings would subside and other times they would spill over as I cried and wore out the leather on my steering wheel as I wrenched it with my hands.
On a Friday night, in March of 2015, I had an anxiety attack when my wife and I were on our way out to dinner. It was humiliating for me to not be able to control my nerves in front of my darling Christian wife (God truly gives the best gifts). After the tears subsided, and in thinking on what I needed to do with my life, I said to her, “I just don’t know what to do. I either have to fight this and press on into something, or stand still and trust the Lord to do it.”
I awoke the next morning, still heavy-hearted, and went to our iPod in the living room. Like so many believers, we like to have the Word playing in our home and the iPod (on speakers) had been playing through the different tapes all night. I walked over to the iPod to select a tape for Quiet Time and found that it was playing “Stand Still” 57-0518.
Believing this was an answer from the Lord, I just kept listening. Brother Branham read one little portion of scripture from Numbers 13:30, “And Caleb stilled the people before Moses…” I was so excited to hear the prophet call out MY NAME in the tape whose very title answered the question I sought the Lord for. I listened intently, just soaking up every letter and punctuation from that tape. I felt so blessed to hear from the Lord and a calm assurance began to warm my heart.
When the tape had finished, I walked out to check the mail. Brothers and sisters of the Gospel, can you imagine how my heart leapt for joy when in the mail that very morning, I find a response from Brother Joseph to a letter I had written to him more than 6 MONTHS before concerning these very things that were on my heart?!!! By the Grace of God, my testimony is that FROM THAT TIME I have not had a single touch of anxiety. I just seek to walk with the Lord today, knowing he’ll take care of tomorrow.