RevealedReveal what the Bible says about your life.

Fear & Anxiety

If I really trusted God, would I still be this anxious? I feel like my worry is proof that my faith is not working. Is that what it means?


Old TestamentPsalm 77:1-3

I cried unto God with my voice, even unto God with my voice; and he gave ear unto me. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted. I remembered God, and was troubled: I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah.

Asaph, a worship leader, writes that he cried out to God, that his soul refused to be comforted, and that when he remembered God he was troubled rather than soothed. This was placed in Israel's public songbook. The community sang it. That tells you something about how the Bible treats a faithful person who is not coping: it does not edit them out, and it does not treat their distress as a disqualification.

New TestamentMark 9:24

And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

A father brings his son to Jesus and says, if you can do anything, help us. Jesus presses the if, and the man answers with one of the most human lines in the Gospels: Lord I believe, help my unbelief. He does not resolve the contradiction. He confesses it. And the healing goes ahead anyway, on the strength of a faith that openly admitted it was mixed.


A path forward

  1. Stop treating anxiety as a verdict on your faith. Take the accusation itself to God in prayer and say plainly that you believe and that you are still frightened.

  2. Read a lament psalm daily for two weeks, starting with Psalm 77 and Psalm 13. Seeing how much space Scripture gives to distress will do more than being told to cheer up.

  3. Tell one mature Christian that you have been carrying this shame. The belief that real Christians do not get anxious usually survives only in private.


Closing verse

A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.

- Isaiah 42:3

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