Answering AnxietySample

The Answer for Anxiety

Is there a biblical answer for my struggle – an answer in Jesus Christ for the anxious heart? The answer is yes, and it is simple and straightforward. The answer comes to us from Scripture with the authority of God. 

It can be captured with one word found in 1 Peter 5, and that word is humility. Peter speaks of casting all your anxieties as the expression of his call to “humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God.”

How do I humble myself under God’s mighty hand? Casting all my cares upon God is a decision, an action that demonstrates obedience to God’s call for my humility. 

So that means that the answer for the anxious heart is humility. 

Or, we could turn it around and ask, “Why do we have anxious hearts?” 

The painful answer is Pride.

If I were to ask you: Do you struggle with anxiety? With worry? With discouragement? 

You may very well admit that you do. 

But if I were to ask you whether you think the root of your problem is pride, would that have been the first thing that came to your mind?

Probably not. 

People who are dealing with discouragement, depression, or despair seldom feel proud. In fact, they feel that they think of themselves in a lowly way. Psychologists would probably say that they struggle with a poor sense of self-worth. So, the human diagnosis of such a problem is not pride, but rather that the person doesn’t think more highly of himself.

But the One we meet with in chapter five of 1 Peter is the great physician of the soul, and He is the only One who accurately knows the heart of man.

The almighty God who has breathed the Bible tells us that the answer for the anxious heart is to humble one’s self, and that you humble yourself by casting your cares upon Him. So, as much as it may surprise us, the One who knows our hearts tells us that the problem of the anxious soul is pride. How can that be? We’ll consider that in the days ahead.

When the anxious heart cries out to God and begs for an answer, its pain is often intense and its energy exhausted. It is painful to hope and to be disappointed, but when the hope is found in God’s Word, then it can be sure – even if at first it seems unlikely.