Introduction

We have either heard or experienced a version of this kind of story. Someone feels so greatly plagued by a worry or anxiety that it’s debilitating because of how negative of an impact it’s had on their life. This story is not as uncommon as you think.

Notice how I worded that, I’m not talking about your garden variety anxiousness. Some anxiety is healthy. If you’re walking in the woods and a bear starts to follow you, that’s a good place to have anxiety. It’s the body’s way of kicking in your fight or flight response, it heightens your awareness of the surrounding (if I can make it to that one tree), and it can increase your adrenaline which you may need to outrun your hiking buddy to that tree. That kind of momentary, situational anxiety is normal.

Indeed, some theorists believe that an inability to feel anxiety is a marker not of health but of being a psychopath. So, there you go.

No, what I’m talking about is the kind of anxiety that’s chronic. It’s not tied to one incidental thing but a general worry (that may have its origins in different things) but it doesn’t go away on its own. In fact, it always seems to be tugging at the mental fabric of those who struggle with it. It’s like a dark cloud that never wants to lift.

That kind of struggle is shared by an estimated 44 million Americans. Anxiety disorders, as they’re known by, are the most common mental afflictions affecting children and adults today. Only one-third of those who suffer this kind of anxiety receive any kind of treatment for it.

And it is debilitating: studies have compared living with an anxiety disorder with the impairment tied to living with diabetes—while both conditions can be fatal, they are always a pain to deal with.

It comes in all shapes and sizes. There’s the Generalized Anxiety Disorder that includes symptoms such as:

• Restlessness or feeling wound-up or on edge
• Being easily fatigued
• Difficulty concentrating or having their minds go blank
• Irritability
• Muscle tension
• Difficulty controlling the worry
• Sleep problems (difficulty falling or staying asleep or restless, unsatisfying sleep)

Some of you are freaking out just hearing this thinking you have it. That’s okay. You do.

It probably has taken another form. Anxiety is also manifested in …

Panic Disorders: Where people have panic attacks which feels like you’re having a heart attack that may include accelerated heart rate, shortness of breath, shaking, etc. Then it puts you in a crazy cycle because once you’ve had it, you’re worried about having another one. And on top of it all, if you go to the ER your vitals check out fine.

Social Anxiety Disorder: Where being around others makes you anxious. You’re worried about feeling dumb, embarrassed, or offending them.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): Where you have repeatedly undesirable urges that stress you out like you’re obsessed about fear of contamination (germs), order and symmetrical, cleaning, routines.

OCD is so common we give ourselves euphemistic titles that seem so innocent: “I’m a Germ-a-phobe” or “I’m a Neat-freak” which sounds way better than “I have a mental illness that leads me into debilitating compulsive behaviors that are abnormal. Please don’t touch me.” [Use hand sanitizer motion]

The Struggle with the Struggle
That exposes the struggle with those who struggle with chronic anxiety: They don’t want to talk about it or even admit that they have it because “it” is seen medically as a mental illness.

Popularly speaking, mental illness means crazy. Why did that guy shoot up that post office, or walk around downtown in only his underwear, or speak to the invisible aliens hidden in the trees? Aw, that guy’s just mentally ill.

Unfortunately, using that term so broadly actually buries most people who don’t have any kind of psychosis, which is unfortunate because it’s okay to have illnesses with other organs (stomach, bladder, heart) but apparently not the head—that’s culturally taboo.

There’s another complication as well. Since anxiety has to do with how one copes with worry it seems to those who don’t struggle with anxiety that one just needs to learn better coping skills and that’s it. No need for medical evaluation at all. But that assumes that there’s no illness at all, it’s just a skill education.

And there’s even another complication. What if you’re a follower of Jesus?

(Read Matt. 6:25-27, 34; Phil. 4:6-7)

Well, crud! This isn’t helpful.

You realize that God’s heart for us isn’t that we live lives troubled by the world’s worries. You want to have a greater faith and let tomorrow worry about itself, but it seems so very hard to do that.

Garden variety anxiety hits us from time to time. These passages feel like chains for those who have pathological anxiety. We don’t only feel bad because we’re in it, we feel bad because we can’t get ourselves out of it.

Now you don’t just struggle with anxiety but with the guilt of getting anxious. You start to doubt your faith, your walk with God, and then anxiety can lead to depression.

So put all these complications together to the struggle of anxiety itself, people can get quiet. Don’t say a word about what they’re going through while things go from bad to worse.

Let me give you a way forward for the followers of Jesus who struggle with anxiety.

I also realize that because of the role I have that people can take what I say as “the” way on this stuff but I want you to notice I specifically said “a” way because there are too many nuances and factors in each person’s struggle to treat them all the same.

But I do think I can give you a pathway to work through so that you not only work through your struggles but even grow spiritually through them.

Medicine & Faith

There seem to be two extremes in the church today when it comes to anxiety.

There are those who say, “Go to a psychiatrist and get on some meds.”

That can’t always be right because it doesn’t take a Rhode’s Scholar to realize that we’re one of the most overmedicated people in the world and that some are on meds that don’t need to be. In fact, it could be hurting them more than helping them.

According to experts, not the least of which is the NIMH, medication “does not cure anxiety disorders” but merely attempts to relieve symptoms. They try to get you to a place to get some help.

Then there are those on other side that say, “Chronic anxiety is only a spiritual problem.”

That can’t always be right because we know that our brains can affect us emotionally as well as physically. So, it’s possible there might be times where our problem has nothing to do with our lack of faith in God but simply the brain is off chemically.

Therefore, if each scenario might have a thousand different things at play, we can’t be monolithic in our approach. We can’t always do the same thing. So what can we do?

Well, God’s Word gives us some guidance.

First, the Bible does teach that we are spiritual creatures and spiritual issues can affect us in a myriad of ways including physically. David says in Psalm 6:3, “My soul is greatly troubled” so much so he can feel it in his “bones.”

Second, the Bible also teaches we aren’t just souls but we have bodies as well. To treat humans, we ought to do so holistically. Sometimes our souls can affect our bodies, and yes, sometimes our physical ailments can affect us spiritually. Ever have someone get chronically sick and get depressed? It works both ways.

Third, the Bible teaches that God gives a common grace to all which, among other things, gives humans a capacity for learning. One example of which is medicine. We don’t leech people when they’re sick, we have better procedures and no one argues against it.

Put it all together, whenever we have a problem we ought to look at that problem through a matrix—address it holistically—which might mean a combo of approaches.

So, James 5:14 says that if anyone is sick they should have the church leadership pray for them, but why does Paul in 1 Timothy 5:23 then encourage his young protégé Timothy to “No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.” Why not just pray for him?

It’s because the Bible takes a more nuanced, holistic approach to healing. It recognizes we’re holistic beings—with physical and spiritual sides—so that means may need to take both roads to recovery.

The same holds true for those who struggle with chronic, debilitating anxiety. You see, I can’t get into your brain to tell you if your struggle is just spiritual or chemical or both? I don’t know. For those who assume to know can be devastating to the faith of those who can’t make it work.

Here’s what I would do, always start in the spiritual and work your way to the medical (if you need to). It might be solely a trust issue with God, but just so you know, that can take some time too. Frankly, it usually does.

When you’ve plumbed those depths as appropriately as you can and you still think there’s something maybe more involved, here’s what you won’t hear from us, “Don’t go to a doctor.” “But Yancey, don’t you think meds get way overprescribed?” Sure, I do. But the abuse of something doesn’t negate the rightful use of it. You should consider that after you’ve started running down the spiritual path.

What does that look like? A lot of things, not the least of which is grounding yourself in God’s truth.

Ground Yourself in God’s Truth

For many, chronic anxiety centers around controlling your world, but the Bible reminds us some very important truths. Like,

• Only God is sovereign and we’re not; he’s in control so we don’t have to be.
• This sovereign God cares for us; this is the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 6. He cares for us more than the lilies of the field and birds of the air.
• It’s why, as Philippians 4 says, we should continually cast our cares upon him and learn to rest in his sovereign goodness in X.

Those are the kinds of truths those who struggle with anxiety should ground themselves in and why there should be a community of followers of Jesus who will help them do so with gospel patience & love.

That alone might resolve your anxiety and I hope it does. But what if it doesn’t? Or what if it takes time to get there (it usually does) and you have to deal with abnormal worrying every day? Let me give you some perspective.

The Gospel Makes Brokenness ‘Okay’

One of my favorite passages is Paul’s confession of weakness in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10. Many scholars believe that Paul may have had some kind of eye condition, an illness that profoundly affected him. Whatever it was, Paul called it his “thorn in the flesh”—his chronic pain—and also asked God to heal him, but God never did.

I want you to hear how Paul recounts his appeal for God to remove this pain and what God told him instead.

(Read 2 Cor. 7:8-10)

Paul wanted to be free of this chronic issue, but God deemed it to stay with Paul so that it might keep him all the more closely to Jesus. That Paul would experience a life not led by achievement, performance, or control but by grace, dependence, and a surrender to God which is where real power of Christ lies. Where he would be content with his life because in the hard places he would feel the power of Jesus even greater.

What this shows me is that the gospel is very “okay” with your brokenness; indeed, instead of seeing it as taboo to be ashamed of, it’s likely the very key for your growth in Christ, for your experiencing the power of God in your life

The beauty of the gospel is that God will use everything and anything to grow you closer to him, especially your brokenness.

The gospel frees us from the chains of shame because it uses the very brokenness that seeks to suffocate our lives and builds a bridge with it to know Jesus in a way we never could before. If we will run to him in it.

My Story of Anxiety

I’m familiar with this because it’s part of my story. A few years back I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.

I had a health issue that triggered some anxiety in me that initially culminated in a brief stint with panic attacks (I thought I needed to go the ER; one night prayed for four hours straight), emotional upheaval, and a fixation on my health (I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I’d go run, read a book, whatever. Didn’t work).

But after my health was sorted out, emotionally I felt fine but I felt lightheaded or dizzy all the time. It lasted the better part of a year. I went to all kinds of medical experts to see what was wrong. No answer until I hit up a neurologist who upon hearing my story said, “Oh man, that would screw up anybody. I know what’s wrong with you. (A tumor?) No, you likely have a form of PTSD. Your brain’s just broken—not too badly but badly enough that you need some care to fix it. You need to meet with a psychiatrist.”

I remember driving home excitedly calling my wife, “Hey Jen, guess what my brain’s broken! That’s what’s wrong.” I was happy to get an answer. Any answer.

But I don’t like taking meds. That’s one of my quirks. So, I gave myself a few months of exercising, eating better, resting longer, and so on. The church even gave me 30 days off. So, I spent four weeks at my family’s ranch in the hill country. The last few days my dizziness went away but returned as I was driving back into Houston.

So now I’m still dizzy. Getting anxious about getting anxious. Crazy cycle. And wound up seeing a psychiatrist. I told her my story and she said, “Yup that would screw up a lot of people. But I know what’s wrong.” What? “You’ve got a classic anxiety disorder. In fact, you’ve had it all your life. You should’ve been seeing a psychiatrist when you were in high school.”

Okay, now you’re losing me. She had surprised me, but it was my time to surprise her. How many panic attacks have you had before this? “None.” How many times have you gotten dizzy before this? “None.” How many times have your emotionally broken down before this? “None.” And she had already tested me out for depression which the answer was “none.”

She said, “That’s very unusual. You’ve obviously got this condition but haven’t suffered from it. I guess that’s because you’re a person of great faith.”

Now I don’t think I have great faith, but I do have faith in a great God. I would like to think God has protected me from myself over these many years (and still does). But even with that, here’s something you should know—I had to get on meds.

It wasn’t a lot, in fact it was the lowest dosage they had but I did. And guess what, 30 days later my lightheadedness went away … for good. I’m not on meds anymore but I’m grateful to God that they were they.

In fact, in my follow-up meeting the doctor asked if I was anxious about getting off my meds and I said, “Naw. If it comes back I know what to do.” And she said, “Right answer or I would’ve kept you on them.”

Conclusion

Why do I tell you my story? I want you to know this: Hi, I’m Yancey Arrington and I’m broken, but God isn’t just using me, he’s using me in light of my brokenness.

And God will do the same for you. If you let him.

Let your anxiety not be a room you get stuck in but a hallway God wants to move you through into something where his “grace is sufficient for you, for [his] power is made perfect in [your] weakness. [So that you might] boast all the more gladly of [your] weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon [you as well].”

May we do that not only individually but corporately! Being honest about our weaknesses, casting our cares upon the one who died for us; that we might experience the reality of Colossians 3:15, “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.”

Yancey Arrington is the teaching pastor at Clear Creek Community Church in Houston, Texas, and the author of the newly released Preaching That Moves People (2018). He blogs at YanceyArrington.com