How Scripture About Worry Helps You To Overcome Anxiety

Sometimes you get a sense that things are going to go off script and off the rails. Perhaps you’ve been preparing for an important work presentation, and you have a gnawing feeling that you’ve either forgotten something crucial or that something will go wrong. Maybe you’ve just asked that special someone on a date; they said “yes” and tonight’s the night, but you’re feeling unsettled for some reason. Scriptures about worry can help.

Alternatively, perhaps you’ve been feeling a bit sluggish and unfocused the last few days, and you’ve started to wonder if there may be some underlying issue for which you will need to seek professional medical assistance.

These and many other situations can kick start a cycle of worry in which you think endlessly about what could go wrong. When things don’t go according to plan, or when we feel a bit uncertain about the future, we often fill in the blanks for ourselves. This typically leads us down the path of the myriad ways things won’t work out, and that can negatively affect your sense of peace and enjoyment of the present moment.

Worry as a pattern of thought

‘Worrying’ is when you feel uneasy, or you find yourself feeling excessively concerned about a situation or problem you’re facing. When you worry excessively, that affects not only your mind but your body as well. Your mind and body go into overdrive as you continually focus on what could happen.

Worrying is attractive because often underlying the worrying behavior is the unspoken thought that perhaps if you spend enough time worrying and thinking through the problem and all the possible outcomes, you can either be prepared for every eventuality, or you can even prevent bad things from happening.

Worrying can become a habit, a pattern of thinking about the future that leaves you feeling anxious or apprehensive. Instead of putting fears to rest, worry can simply stoke them and make them an ever-present reality. Worrying affects your emotional and mental health, and it can also affect your body in surprising ways.

Not only does excessive worrying lead to feelings of anxiety, but it can also make you physically ill. A small nagging concern that’s given its head can end up affecting your heart by making you more likely to have high blood pressure, a heart attack, or a stroke. Anxiety triggers stress hormones that make your heart work harder, which can threaten your physical well-being.

Many people use worrying as a way of trying to tame their fears and the uncertainty that confronts them. The more emotionally invested in something a person is, the more likely worry will creep into the picture if things are uncertain or might go awry. Worry also functions as a way of protecting ourselves from possible disappointment.

By bracing ourselves for the worst-case scenario, we may feel that we can face the future better prepared for it and that we won’t be caught off guard. Worry often feels like a good idea because it seems like it makes us better prepared and prudent people.

Worrying can seem prudent because it feels like problem-solving. The two may be similar, but they are different from one another. Worrying will have you thinking over and over about a situation, leading to apprehension and anxiety, while problem-solving is about thinking creatively about a situation and producing solutions.

If you find yourself staying up late at night with a notepad open in front of you to jot ideas down and work through possible solutions, that’s probably problem-solving. However, if your late night is punctuated by racing thoughts, being consumed by all of the possible negative outcomes of a situation, that is probably worry.

Scripture about worry disrupts anxiety’s influence

The way we think and move in our daily lives is shaped by a variety of things, including our upbringing, life experiences, and personality. The presence and reality of sin in the world and our lives means that the way we look at the world often doesn’t line up with God’s perspective. That’s why after laying out the good news about Jesus and how it changes everything, the apostle Paul writes the following:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will – Romans 12: 1-2, NIV

Paul urges his readers to allow themselves to be transformed in how they think, to no longer be conformed to how the world typically functions and perceives things. The Bible, which is one of the primary ways that God speaks to people, is disruptive of business as usual. God’s way of doing things is different from how we typically do things.

Jesus’ words to His disciples are a case in point when He says

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” – Matthew 16:24-26, NIV

What Scripture does for us regarding worry is it makes us look at ourselves and our world anew. It makes us pause and ask important questions about our thought processes, including the following:

• What is my thinking saying about God, the world I live in, and myself?
• Are there some untruths about God that I’m believing and acting out?
• How has worrying served me in the past? Why do I think it will benefit me now?
• What truths do I need to believe about God, myself, and the world I live in?

When you take in what the Bible is saying in your situation, allow the truth to set in, repeat it to yourself, and step out in faith by walking according to what you know to be true. Take it as an invitation to a different way of being in the world. It may mean leaving behind unhelpful patterns of thought such as worrying by instead choosing to live by the truth that God is in control of the world, and He will preserve you through whatever situation comes up.

Scripture about worry

There are many passages about worry in the Scriptures. That’s probably because we are prone to worry, and our worry is rooted in fear and uncertainty. Worry robs us of our peace and joy, so it’s no wonder there are many passages directed at worry. What the Bible reminds us is that there are unhelpful and unhealthy ways of dealing with our fears, and worry is one of them. Instead of letting fear dominate our mental and emotional landscape, the Bible urges people to lean on God, who is sovereign over all and is good.

One of the more familiar passages about worry and anxiety is this one:

…do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus – Philippians 4:6-7, ESV

This passage urges us to substitute our anxiety for prayer which submits everything to God. It’s insufficient to tell someone to stop doing something; they need to replace it with a different kind of behavior. So, when you feel like worrying, resort to prayer that’s laced with thanksgiving, and trust that God will meet you with mind-boggling peace.

Jesus also tells His followers not to worry. In a lengthy passage about worry, He says:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” – Matthew 6:25-27, NIV

Worrying doesn’t add anything to our lives, as Jesus points out. Rather, it leaves us feeling worn out and joyless.

After reminding His listeners that God knows the needs of His people, He reminds them that it’s people who don’t know God who run around being consumed by thoughts about what they’ll eat or drink. Jesus then urges that instead of pursuing these things, they should “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6: 33-34, NIV).

Just as with the Philippians passage, Jesus urges a substitution; worry for trust and the pursuit of God’s kingdom. Our nervous energy has to go somewhere, and Jesus tells us that we gain nothing by worrying, but we can pursue God’s kingdom instead.

Finding help to overcome worry

Worry is an all-too-common response to uncertainty and fear about the future. Sometimes one’s worry and anxiety are so severe that they require professional intervention. One’s anxieties may stem from a disorder, and one sign of this is if those worrying thoughts or actions disrupt your everyday functioning and prevent you from enjoying life.

If you find yourself worrying a lot, and you would rather lean into trusting God and walking in His peace, why not seek out the counsel of a Christian therapist? Your therapist can help you understand the negative patterns of thought and behavior that undergird your worrying, and help you substitute these for healthy patterns.

Worry can be overcome, but it requires consistent attention and effort to build up new habits that will promote your emotional, mental, and physical health. Reach out to find a Christian therapist who will walk with you to overcome your worry and begin taking each day as it comes.