anxiety and excitement

A trusted counselor recently told me (and I hope that I’m conveying this correctly) that anxiety and excitement are the same energy; that is, they come from the same part of the brain.  To me, that made a lot of sense, but also made no sense.  A new adventure, idea, or God moment produces tremendous excitement but also a good amount of anxiety.  How do you distinguish one from the other?  This is my take: I think anxiety comes from a place of fear that something might go wrong or might be too big to take on.  And I think excitement comes from a place of hope in the fulfillment of an amazing vision and the lives that will be touched because of it.  Fear and hope.  The two are in tension with each other with every new opportunity, but they come as a package deal.

This is how I feel with youth ministry right now, but really how I feel about my life.  I got a lot of excitement and a lot of anxiety flying at me, pretty much at the same time.  That used to drive me crazy.  I would question my calling, faith, commitment–pretty much all those things that we question when things aren’t going right.  How could I be so filled with anxiety, I would wonder?  Does that mean that my excitement isn’t worth as much?

These days I realize that it’s ok to live with both.  It shows I’m not perfect.  It shows that I need Jesus now more than ever.  It shows that perfect love casts out fear, but my love isn’t perfect.  Thank God that his is.

Here’s one of my favorite quotes from Brennan Manning (The Ragamuffin Gospel):
“When I am honest, I admit that I am a bundle of paradoxes.  I believe and I doubt, I hope and I get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty.  I am trusting and suspicious, I am honest and I still play games.  Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.”

At the end of a long, great day, I feel more like a bundle of paradoxes than anything else.  It doesn’t really make sense.  But God loves me as I am.  Jesus died for sinners.  He uses the most unlikely.  We fail but he still chooses us.  And I’m learning to be ok with the tension.