Answers · Hard Times
How do I get through fear and anxiety?
Let's be honest about where you probably are: not in a philosophy seminar. You're awake at 3 a.m. with your heart pounding. Or you're smiling through the day and quietly strangling inside. That word — strangling — is almost literal: Kevin Allen points out in his sermon "I Believe in God, Yet I Worry" that worry descends from an old word meaning to strangle, to harass. It sneaks in and chokes. So the first thing to hear is that God does not talk to anxious people the way impatient people do. He does not say "just stop it." He says this:
"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."
— Isaiah 41:10 (KJV)
Notice the order. Before God asks anything of you, He gives you five promises: I am with you, I am your God, I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you. The command "fear thou not" rides on the back of who He is, not on how strong you feel. Allen's own confession in that sermon is the sentence anxious people most need to say out loud: "I am not in control of anything but me." Much of anxiety is a control problem — we cannot guarantee our health, the economy, the diagnosis, the child — and the grip loosens when we stop carrying what was never ours to carry. His text was Psalm 121: "He that keepeth thee will not slumber." You can sleep, or fail to and still be kept, because the keeping was never your shift.
But what do you actually do with the fear when it rises? Paul — who wrote his most joyful letter from prison — gives a practice, not a platitude:
"Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."
— Philippians 4:6–7 (KJV)
"Be careful for nothing" means be anxious for nothing — and the replacement is specific: take the exact thing you're afraid of, name it to God in prayer, with thanksgiving, and the promise is a peace that stands guard ("shall keep" is a soldier's word) over heart and mind. Stacey McBee, teaching on the prayer journey, roots it deeper still: fear is not something God issued to you. "God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7). The fear came from somewhere, but it didn't come from Him.
And if your anxiety lives mostly at night — if you dread bedtime the way some people dread mornings — Brad DeLong has a word spoken from his own experience of sleepless seasons: that dread "is not your lot in life." His text was David, who slept while fleeing his own son's army. Rest in the middle of turmoil is not a personality trait some people are born with; it's a promise attached to a Keeper who doesn't sleep so you can. Tonight, start where Isaiah starts: not with your grip on God, but with His grip on you — "I will uphold thee." That's the hand that's actually holding.
Sources: Isaiah 41:10 and Philippians 4:6–7 quoted above (KJV) · Psalm 121:3 · 2 Timothy 1:7 · "I Believe in God, Yet I Worry" — Kevin Allen, sermon · "The Prayer Journey" — Stacey McBee, teaching · "The Sound Mind: Sleep" — Brad DeLong, Bible study. All three are in this site's library; quotations are from their published transcripts.