“I’m Anxious”

“I’m anxious,” you say.

Dear friend, we want you to know that you are in good company. We know what it is like to be anxious—whether it is that nagging anxiety that distracts all throughout the day, that unidentified anxiety that keeps you from sleep, or that anxiety that keeps your mind spinning and spinning, wearing you out without offering a solution.

The Bible is a wonderful book—and the best—to have around in times of anxiety. It is filled with stories of people just like us—anxious people. It sketches our real world quite accurately, not leaving out the darker parts of life, but giving us the whole story of reality including the dark colors like worrisome, stressful, and anxious seasons we so try to erase out of our own lives.

The Bible does not just give you characters to empathize with you, or validate that you live in an anxiety-inducing world. It does something better. Remember, the Bible is God’s Word. Since God can never lie, he will tell us the truth about our world and about ourselves. So when we open his book, we will feel wonderfully at home even in our deepest distresses, because we will always read an honest assessment of our own hearts, our world, and our loving God.  

How the Bible Responds

But God, the author of the Bible, is also called “The Wonderful Counselor” and “the Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6) When you open your Bible, you are hearing from a Counselor who actually formed your deepest parts and knows the hidden thoughts of your heart (Psalm 139:2, 13). You are hearing the gentle words of the One who is Peace himself.  

Because anxiety stems from all different places—sometimes sin we don’t address, sometimes sorrows we cannot control, and sometimes suffering, whether self-inflicted or not—the Bible offers diverse counsel, and we hope to help you understand how God speaks into your anxious heart.  

A Prayer for Anxiety

If you are anxious today, would you pray with us, and ask God to meet you through his Word exactly in the way you most need? We may not know your name, but the Lord knows your frame intimately, and we believe he wants to minister to you.   

Dear Lord, Thank you for loving me enough to speak to me through the Bible. I am so very anxious today. Would you please help me hear what you have to say, and would you please show me what it means that you are the Prince of Peace. “Search me, God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24). Amen.