Anxiety in the Bible: How to Move from Worry Toward Rest

We often try to ground our sense of peace in things that can change in an instant. We look to our health, financial stability, our friendships and other relationships, our looks, and other areas for peace. These things can have benefits in their own way, but they ultimately form a poor foundation for life because they aren’t permanent.

If we want something that will stand the test of time, a foundation upon which to build our lives that will survive the fiercest assaults that life can launch against us, such a hope and such a foundation can only be found in Jesus. This has remarkable implications for our lives, including the sense of security we can have, knowing that we are safe in Christ, even when we go through tough times.

Anxiety is a normal reaction to stress as a potential danger. We need a way to protect ourselves against harm, and so our bodies have the remarkable ability to prepare for such instances. Our fight-or-flight response, which is triggered by stress and danger (whether real or imagined), prepares our body to respond appropriately to the situation. This could be a job interview, a first date, or a snake that just slithered across your path.

While feeling a bit of anxiety can be a normal response in stressful situations, such as a public speaking engagement or taking a test, those feelings of anxiety can also function as an indicator of something deeper. It’s important to notice when they become excessive, all-consuming, and begin interfering with your day-to-day life. In those cases, anxiety has become a disorder, and that is a condition diagnosable by a mental health professional.

If you find that your anxiety is out of control and undermining your well-being and daily functioning, you should consider going to a mental health professional for a proper diagnosis.

Thankfully, the Lord has not left us without wisdom and guidance regarding anxiety or any other part of our lives. Treatment for anxiety includes psychotherapy and medication. Part of what happens in psychotherapy is talking with your therapist. They can help you begin understanding the causes of anxiety, your triggers for anxiety, and any patterns of thought, behavior, and action that undermine your well-being.

These unhealthy and unhelpful patterns of behavior and thinking need to be understood and ultimately replaced by healthier ones. Part of how you can deal with everyday anxiety, as well as deeper anxiety disorders, is to speak God’s truths over yourself. You can begin to pattern your thinking and being in ways that align with God’s truth and ways.

Below are some Scriptures that can help us work through our anxiety and ground us in the hope, security, and freedom from fear that can only come through Jesus Christ.

Come and find rest

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” – Matthew 11:28–30, ESV

Jesus invites people to place their trust in him and place their lives in his hands. For those who are carrying the burden of religious legalism, Jesus invites you to set it down. Instead of being weighed down by the laws that seemed to multiply guilt without necessarily offering any relief, Jesus offers rest for our souls.

This means that He is offering freedom from the crushing burden of guilt of trying to earn salvation by good works to those who desire eternal rest and seek forgiveness of their sins.

Sometimes, we are anxious in life because we feel like we don’t measure up to a standard, whether it is that of the people around us or to God’s standards. Jesus frees us from that by offering us the lighter burden of being his disciples and finding rest through simple commitment to him.

We live for Him, and He loves, cares for, and accepts us already. We pursue our life in Him from the position of knowing we are already loved and accepted, and we don’t have to earn it because Jesus has done it for us on the cross.

When good things become ultimate things that take us off course, it can make us anxious as we try to keep it all together. In our culture, we are consumed by many anxieties and concerns, and these have become ultimate for many of us. When things like our safety, our personal health, or the environment and its viability become ultimate concerns, the enormity of the problems, coupled with our limited capacities, makes us feel endlessly fragile and anxious.

What we need is to bring things back into perspective and make God the center of our lives. That way, these other things begin to occupy their proper place. When we yield to Jesus and his yoke, it allows us to approach these good concerns with the resources and wisdom of God, and that can help us find peace and rest. We can trust that our work in the Lord will not be in vain (1 Corinthians 15: 58). We don’t need to feel anxious about our impact or how things will unfold.

Finding Peace in Hard Places

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,
for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. – Psalm 23:1-4, ESV

Fear is probably the strongest human emotion, and we often agonize over all the challenging and dreadful things that could happen to us at any moment. This includes what might happen to our health and finances, losing our loved ones, failing at something important, or being rejected.

Life is often not safe, and we never know what we can find in the hard things we go through. Many things can bring suspense and danger in our lives. These verses from Psalm 23 are a good reminder that the people of God have assurance that God is with them in those times, and so they need not fear. God draws us to find rest and restoration when we follow and trust him.

Trusting In God’s Provision and Care

And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.

“Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?” –  Luke 12:22-26, ESV

There are many reasons why believers should not be anxious, and several of them are given in this passage from Luke. For one thing, our lives are more than what we eat; even our bodies are more than what we eat. We do need food and clothing, but these things enable us to focus on what life is really about: loving God and loving our neighbor. It’s challenging, but we can love God and our neighbor whether we are well-fed or not.

If our lives are preoccupied by the means and not the ends of our lives, we can be consumed by the pressure to gather the things that seemingly secure our existence, so much so that we miss the point. Believers also shouldn’t be anxious because they realize how much value they possess in God’s eyes. If he cares for birds, why wouldn’t he care for you?

Anxiety is also not in our best interests because none of us has enough control over our own life, even to add a single hour to our span of life. It’s quite counterintuitive, but striving and taking things into our own hands, and then getting anxious because life is not under our control, doesn’t help us. It is far better to surrender ourselves to the loving care of our heavenly Father, who does have everything under control.

Important Reminders

Psalm 56 reminds us that “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.” (Psalm 56:3, NIV) We can try to put our trust elsewhere, but those things will ultimately fail and disappoint us. This will likely lead us into deeper anxiety and worry as we try to secure ourselves against the hardships we face in life.

Writing nearly seventeen centuries ago, in his long prayer called Confessions, Augustine wrote, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” (Augustine) Our restless and anxious hearts try to find peace and rest in many ways, but we can only find what we are looking for in the Lord. This is our deepest need.

To deal with our anxiety, we should be aware of this need and where to have it met. We can grow in our awareness of our unhealthy patterns of behavior and thought through therapy and with the assistance, when necessary, of medication to ease the symptoms of anxiety. This can help us function in life. If you’re ready to learn more about therapy for anxiety, contact this office for more information.