What does the Bible say about anxiety?

What does the Bible say about anxiety?

If you are anxious tonight, you already know what it feels like. The racing thoughts. The chest that will not unclench. The mind running the same worry in a circle, again, and again.

The Bible does not pretend that feeling away. It does not tell you that a real Christian would not feel it. Paul, writing from a prison cell, gave the church at Philippi this instead.

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

Not a command to feel nothing. A command to bring everything.

Where does an anxious thought belong?

Paul does not say stop thinking about it. He says take it somewhere.

"In every thing by prayer and supplication." Not the big things only. Not the respectable things only. Every thing. The bill you cannot pay. The test result you are waiting on. The phone call you dread. The relationship you cannot fix. All of it, named out loud to God.

And with it, thanksgiving. Not because the situation is good. Because God has been good, and naming that steadies a mind that worry has set spinning.

What does Paul say happens next?

And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

This is not a peace you build by reasoning your way out of the problem. It passes understanding. It does not depend on the problem being solved. It stands guard over the heart and the mind while the problem is still there.

That is the promise. Not the removal of the trouble. A peace that keeps watch in the middle of it.

Why does worry about tomorrow do no good today?

Jesus spoke to this directly, and He went further than most of us are comfortable with.

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

He points to birds that do not plant a single seed and are fed anyway. He points to wildflowers that never spin a thread of cloth and are dressed better than kings.

Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

Then He asks the question that cuts straight through the whole exercise of worry.

Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

No one. Worry has never once added a single inch to anyone's height, a single dollar to anyone's account, a single hour to anyone's life. It does not build. It only burns.

Jesus is not shaming the worried. He is showing them that the thing they are doing does not work, and then He tells them what does.

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Seek the kingdom first. Let your Father carry what He has already promised to carry.

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Today has enough in it. You were never meant to carry tomorrow's weight on today's back.

Who is actually carrying the weight?

Peter puts the same truth in a single verb, and it is worth slowing down on.

Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

Casting. Not setting down gently to pick back up later. Throwing it, deliberately, onto someone else, because He careth for you.

That last clause is the reason the first one is safe to do. You are not casting your care into the void. You are casting it onto a Person who cares.

David knew the same thing from the inside of real trouble, surrounded by enemies, his own mind working against him.

Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.

And in another psalm, he names the exact thing anxiety does. The multitude of thoughts within. The mind that will not quiet itself. And he names where the relief came from.

In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul.

Not fewer thoughts. Comfort arriving inside the multitude of them.

What do you do when fear will not leave?

Isaiah gives God's own words to a people who had every reason to be afraid.

Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

Four promises stacked one on another. I am with thee. I will strengthen thee. I will help thee. I will uphold thee. Not one of them depends on the fear being gone first. All of them are for the person who is still afraid and still standing in it.

So what does the Bible say about anxiety?

It does not say stop feeling it.

It says bring it. By prayer. With thanksgiving.

It says worry adds nothing, and the Father who feeds the birds already knows what you need.

It says cast the care, because He careth for you.

It says He is with you, He will strengthen you, He will hold you up.

And it says a peace that does not make sense by the world's math will guard your heart and your mind, not after the trouble ends, but while you are still in it.

You do not have to carry it alone tonight. Cast it. He is already holding it.