Anxious

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

Psalm 139:23

We are anxious about everything, it would seem. 

Today on the Culture Translator, I was introduced to the latest anxiety trend among Generation Z: “eco-anxiety.” Stemming from the belief that there is currently a climate crisis, eco-anxiety is causing a majority of 18-25 year-olds to worry about what will happen in the future.

Before you judge Generation Z, stop and evaluate what has your heart racing these days. What makes you worry about the future? How do we know what is really worthy of adrenaline-producing, cortisol-throbbing anxiety? 

We have a little saying in our house when stress begins to shake us: “Is it an ant, or an elephant?”

And like most everything in our life, it all goes back to Africa.

One day an elephant trundled through my backyard and taught me a lesson about anxiety. 

I was inside our mud house making morning tea when I heard the ruckus. The whole village was shouting. Children were crying and women ululated with shrill voices all around the water pump. 

I ran outside to see what was happening in our usually quiet compound. Behind my house, taking his sweet time, was an enormous bull elephant, weaving his way through the tall savanna grass. 

Trailing after him was a noisy group of shirtless tribesmen armed with rudimentary wooden bows and arrows. Cautiously drawing close, they took aim. Like toothpicks thrown against a cement wall, the arrows bounced off the elephant’s tough skin and fell to the dusty ground. The massive, beautiful creature did not seem to be bothered one bit.

I searched the crowds for my best friend Fatuma. There she was, her baby girl tied securely to her back. 

“Where’s Rumba?” I asked.

“He’s at home hiding under the bed. He’s not going to school today.”

A comical image of her adorable, round-faced little boy hiding under the bed flashed through my mind. I would have burst out laughing if my friend’s expression hadn’t been so serious. In fact, all my neighbors were serious. As I studied their faces it was clear they all were taking this event very, very seriously. 

In a lame attempt to help (and a small amount of flippancy, if I’m honest) I said, “Um…it’s just an elephant who’s lost from his herd. He won’t hurt anything. Don’t worry!”

Her eyes grew big with a look that said, My friend doesn’t have any common sense at all. 

Patiently, she explained to me, “That elephant will trample all our crops. We will have no harvest and no food. We will die. He must be stopped.”

Duly chastised, I looked down at the hard ground. Ants scampered everywhere, hard at work in the dust at my feet. 

I hadn’t thought for a second about what the elephant meant to my neighbors. I assessed the situation through my own giddy excitement about seeing a real live safari in my back yard.

The ants just kept crawling around, oblivious to my distress. For weeks I had been trying to find poison to get rid of them, tired of finding them in the sugar bowl. It suddenly occurred to me that they weren’t really hurting anything.

But this elephant, this animal I was frankly thrilled to see up close in the wild of my own African village, this creature of my childhood storybooks and cuddly stuffed toys, had the power to change my friend Fatuma’s life. To destroy her family’s livelihood as sustenance farmers.

My perspective changed that bright morning. I put my camera away and hurried to a colleague’s house to get help. As villagers trailed the elephant, a group of us tracked down a local wildlife ranger. By nightfall, the elephant had been reunited with his herd. The village was safe, and I’d learned a lesson about anxiety from a lost elephant and a few tiny ants.

Some things in life are ants, and some are elephants. 

Ants are annoying, they distract us, they might even bite. But they don’t really change our lives. 

Elephants are life changers. When they come barreling into our lives, things are never the same.

It helps to know the difference.

Is this an ant? Or is it an elephant? 

Can I live with this, or will it change my life?

After the death of a loved one several years ago, many things I used to treat as elephants suddenly shrank. Turns out they were only harmless little ants working in the dust of my life. Annoying, but not life-changers. 

Is the problem you are facing today an ant or an elephant? #Perspective changes everything. #anxiety Share on X

Lord, search me and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Amen.

@audreycfrank