Have you ever felt fear or worry? Pretty much everyone should be able to say yes to that. Fear and worry, also known as anxiety, is an emotion everyone is born with. This emotion is to help us stray away from danger. Anxiety can end up saving our lives. However, most adults in this generation are diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, which is abnormal. My goal today is to share some tips on how to overcome anxiety as a Christian.
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What Is Anxiety?
So what is anxiety? This may seem like a silly question to those struggling with intense anxiety because I can speak for those people. You may think, “How do people not struggle with anxiety enough to know what it is? “It’s crazy!
Coming from someone with debilitating anxiety as a christian occasionally, it’s hard for me to realize that not everyone knows what anxiety is like.
But for those who don’t know what anxiety is, it is frequently intense, excessive, and persistent worry and fears about everyday situations.
With anxiety as a Christian, depending on how badly you struggle with it, it can feel like a fast heart beating, rapid breathing, sweating, hyperventilating, panic attacks, shaking, fainting, nausea, and more.
Stating these anxiety symptoms isn’t to scare you but to inform you of how badly others struggle with it. And for those who struggle with it severely, this is to comfort you and let you know that you are not alone.
We are all born with hormones called cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones go hand in hand with our flight or fight response. Have you ever heard of that?
If you are in a situation with a bear chasing you, will you run away from it (flight), or will you try and fight? Everyone has a response when it comes to life-or-death situations.
We with severe anxiety are in a constant state of flight or fight response.
There are many factors why someone may be stuck in flight or fight response due to genetics, childhood history, diet, and bad habits, which I will go more in-depth with later.
What Does The Bible Say About Anxiety?
Now that we know what anxiety is let’s discuss what God says about anxiety in the Bible. God doesn’t want us to be fearful. He wants us to give our fears over to him.
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:6
“Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”
1 Peter 5:7
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your value than they? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life? Consider the Lillies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these…”
Matthew 6:25-34
Why Do Christians Struggle With Anxiety?
So why do we struggle with anxiety as a Christian? If God tells us not to be anxious or fearful, does that make us “bad Christians?” No!
Even Jesus had anxiety. In Luke 22, Jesus’s sacrifice was around the corner. Jesus kept talking about how it was almost His time to go. Jesus was scared.
He prayed to His Heavenly Father to take this cup, to take this suffering away from him if God was willing.
“Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me-nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done. In anguish, he prayed more fervently, and his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground.”
Luke 22: 42-44
As I mentioned above, everyone struggles with some form of anxiety, some more than others. As Christians, our struggle with anxiety doesn’t go away.
Jesus told us there would be troubles in this world, but to take heart because he has overcome the world. Meaning he will help us through our troubles.
Factors That Cause Anxiety As A Christian
The Enemies Voice
We all have an enemy, and that is the devil. The enemy is the father of lies.
His primary purpose is to kill, steal, and destroy. For as long as the earth has been alive, the devil has had a long time to practice being deceitful.
He has gotten good at lying and deceiving generation after generation. Remember that he will do anything to get you away from God.
The enemy will try to get a foothold in your mind, distract, consume, and confuse you.
He will try to take God’s truth and turn them into lies. If you let him succeed, he’s got you right where he wants you.
So how can you tell if they are the enemies lies that have you in a cycle of what-if questions that never end?
God’s Voice
Simple. Determine whether what you are thinking is truthful. Go to the Bible and find the truth. Does what you are thinking or saying line up with what God says?
Pray and ask God to give you discernment and reveal the truth.
Secondly, there are a few factors that make our anxiety worse.
Your diet, childhood, thoughts, and the amount of exercise you get affect these things.
If you want to learn about clean eating, click here to learn more about it. Your diet affects your anxiety due to a lack of nutrients we need daily for our bodies to function correctly.
Diet, Childhood, And Exercise
Our food nowadays doesn’t give us the nutrients we need, so that post explains how we can eat better to get more nutrients.
Childhood can affect how you respond to specific situations, leading to anxious thoughts. Certain conditions can alter our brains and how we react or think.
Your amount of exercise affects you more than you know. We are not made to be idle. We must be moving daily, and when we don’t get enough movement, our bodies lack a few things.
What Is The Root Of Anxiety As A Christian?
Something that you need to know about anxiety is that it is all based on your thoughts. So what do your thoughts look like on a daily bases?
Are they primarily positive or negative? Are your thoughts lies or true? Do your thoughts often sound like what-ifs?
Your thoughts determine your feelings. God tells us that we cannot trust our feelings. Do you know why? Because our thoughts affect the way we feel. Our brains are so powerful!
So if you ever feel anxious, pause and think about what kind of thoughts you have been thinking.
I was listening to a podcast from Craig Groschell, and he had a guest on this particular episode who was a neurosurgeon. Craig Groschell is a Pastor at Life Chruch.
Craig has had his fair share of anxiety as a Christian, so he often would call on his friend, the neurosurgeon.
Related:How To Study The Bible
What this doctor explained about anxiety is fascinating. What he explained was that everyone has neuro paths in their brain. Every time we think about a thought, it creates a new path.
Repeating the same thought will take the same neuro path instead of creating a new one. So the more you think about a thought, the easier it is to have that thought again in the future.
Suppose these thoughts are negative and create anxious feelings. That’s not good. This makes it 10x harder to develop new thoughts and eliminate the old ones.
The next thing that I found interesting is from a sermon that John Bervere preached. He explains that it is scientifically proven that our negative thoughts and brain paths show up as dark paths in a brain scan.
Get this; the positive thoughts show up as light paths in the brain during a scan! I don’t know about you, but that gives me goosebumps. Jesus is the light! So it just makes sense that those good thoughts are light.
Can God Use Your Anxiety For Good?
I want to start by saying that God can use your anxiety for good! As Christians, our purpose is to show others, God, to live our lives for Him, and to glorify Him.
That means if you must go through a season of struggle to help someone else for God’s glory, then so be it!
That pill was hard to swallow because living with my debilitating anxiety as a Christian was miserable! I didn’t understand why God would allow it to affect me the way that it did.
As a child, I was anxious to do some things, but for the most part, I was one of those who didn’t understand people with severe anxiety.
I lived most of my life with a YOLO mindset, and even if I was scared, I did things anyway. I guess you could say I was an adrenaline junkie.
Little did I know that in my 20s, I would be struggling with severe anxiety. I had no idea what was headed my way.
My Story
My story started with my friend. A close friend had been struggling with severe anxiety. Bad enough to make her sick and throw up! Yes, that can happen.
At first, I would joke around with her because it wasn’t normal, and we tried to laugh it off. We didn’t understand it.
After months of her struggling with this anxiety that was making her everyday life hard, I started to notice something weird. A few more people had talked to me about similar symptoms my friend had.
And get this, something they all had in common was that they all struggled with anxiety.
I didn’t understand it and I couldn’t sympathize with what they were going through. It felt like I couldn’t truly be there for them because I didn’t know what to say.
I had never experienced anything like what they were going through and couldn’t relate.
A few months later, I started noticing that I was having difficulty shaking my negative thoughts. My what-if thoughts were never-ending.
My anxiety didn’t come out of nowhere because, like I said before, I was always a little timid as a child. But, those little nervous thoughts seemed to have worsened.
I grew up thinking I had to be perfect, so when I became a Christian, I struggled with my relationship with God because I felt I had to be perfect.
In those days I was always on edge, and I never let myself slack. I always had unachievable expectations of myself, which caused me anxious thoughts and feelings.
More and more thoughts kept becoming easier to think. I struggled with insecurity, so in my relationship with my boyfriend at the time, I didn’t feel good enough for him, I didn’t feel good enough for God, let alone anyone.
The no-good thoughts kept coming and coming.
I began making myself sick with my thoughts and I started getting sick and throwing up like my friends who struggle with anxiety!
Then the wedding stress. Planning everything was so stressful for me at this point because I was always anxious. I was always in a state of flight or fight. I didn’t want to do anything wrong.
Related: Book To Read If You Struggle With Anxiety
This season of my life was the best season of my life and the worst at the same time, lol. It was the best because I was getting married to my best friend, who was excellent at supporting me through all of my anxious and negative thoughts.
But the anxiety I was dealing with made me feel so miserable.
I would work up so much that I would get sick and throw up or pass out.
The only reason I would pass out is that I would work my stomach up so badly, to the point of being unable to keep anything down, like water or food, and I would pass out from dehydration.
I passed out one month before my wedding and busted my forehead. I woke up with a gash going straight through my eyebrow. Yikes, not fun at all. So trust me when I say I know how you feel about anxiety as a Christian.
I felt like anxiety was consuming and taking over my life. I lost who I was and couldn’t figure out how to get a hold of it and start living my life again.
Let me say it has been a long journey. I am happy to say that my anxiety isn’t nearly as bad anymore because I’ve overcome it, but a few situations give me PTSD from passing out and getting sick.
I was triggering my anxiety by thinking about what if I have a panic attack, what if I pass out again and hurt myself worse? So I had to figure out how to overcome anxiety as a Christian, which God helped me do.
Is It A Sin To Have Anxiety As A Christian?
As I mentioned above, even Jesus had anxious moments. Does that mean he sinned? No! Jesus never sinned in his 33 years of life on this earth.
So why do some people think that having anxiety as a Christian is a sin?
Some people think it’s because we aren’t trusting God enough, which to a certain extent, is true. But at the end of the day, the only way anxiety is a sin is by how you choose to deal with it.
If you deal with anxiety by something of the world, then yes, it can be a sin, but having anxiety feelings is not.
When Jesus was anxious about the moment he would be sacrificed, he prayed to God. He didn’t pray just once, but he prayed two or three times about it.
In his prayer, he gave his fear to God because it was God’s will over our own, and Jesus knew why it had to happen. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t scared or anxious.
How To Overcome Anxiety As A Christian
Now the moment you’ve all been waiting for. How to overcome anxiety as a Christian? First things first:
1.Meditate On God’s Words/ Memorize Scripture
Joshua 1:8 “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.”
As Christians, we are called to meditate on God’s words day and night. This means we need to be in his word and think frequently about what he tells us to do.
By pondering what we’ve read and meditating on what God says, we eventually create a habit of always thinking about what God would want us to do. We will be able to memorize his words.
Memorizing Scripture is huge when it comes to fighting anxiety.
One of the things I did to help me fight my anxious thoughts was to find a bible verse that I would recite whenever I had an anxious thought.
I specifically chose a verse that would help and speak against the enemy’s lies that I was being told. This helps tremendously when fighting anxiety.
Reciting those bible verses against my anxious thoughts was changing my thought patterns. I was replacing the old with the new and replacing the lie with the truth and I was letting God’s words fight my anxious thoughts.
I was putting on the armor of God. Memorizing His words was putting on my helmet of truth.
When God tells us to put on the whole armor of God, he is telling us to be ready to fight our battles. This battle happened to be in my mind.
Ephesians 6: 11-18
“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always pray for all the Lord’s people.”
2.Prayer
“4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:6,7
Prayer is a powerful weapon God has given us to use against the enemy. We are constantly in spiritual warfare, so we need to fight our battles with the weapons God has given us.
Prayer is our way of talking to God. It is our way of letting him into our lives and asking him to help us. When we pray, we should be giving him our fears and should be surrendering to them and trusting God to care for us.
This one was particularly hard for me. I have a hard time trusting anything or anybody, so I had to teach myself that He is my safe space, the one I could say anything to and know that something will be done about it.
Praying confidently that the Lord will care for you is an excellent way to pray about your fears or anxious thoughts.
3.Worship
Worship became my absolute favorite thing to do when battling my anxiety. I always felt God near me when I sang and worshiped Him in the middle of my storms.
Listening to worship music and singing out loud how great our God is and how sovereign and holy He is, helped me put my fears into place.
Not only can you worship God with music, but you can worship God by how you live. Now how do you live with anxiety and worship God?
Great Question! Not letting your anxiety change how you view life or even God—living like you are called to live even if you have anxiety as a Christian.
That means instead of walking around life like Scrooge. We walk around like we are living in victory because, guess what, we are! We are living in victory because we know how our story ends.
Jesus died on the cross not for us to live a miserable life but for us to worship him with the lives he saved.
4.Learn God’s Voice
How do we learn God’s voice? How can we hear God?
We can hear God by opening up His word and reading it. God’s words are constantly speaking to us. His word is alive.
If you hear a voice and don’t know if it’s from God, check it out! Open His word and see if that voice speaking to you is lining up with what God says in His word.
At the beginning of discerning God’s voice, it may be difficult, but remember, the more you do it, the easier and easier it gets to recognize Him.
If you hear a voice that sounds like something the enemy would say, fight against it with the truth. Gods words.
5.Supportive Community
Having a supportive community is so important when having anxiety as a Christian.
If you are closed off and not vulnerable with the people around you, you will feel lonely, and the enemy will make you feel alone, which is not good when trying to overcome anxiety.
I was blessed to have my husband, friends, family, pastors, and mentors who supported me.
Trust me, I know it may feel weird opening up about it if you are closed off like I was, but God let me get to a point where I had no choice but to talk to people.
I mean that we were not put on this earth to be alone. We were put on this earth to have relationships that push us toward God.
I was thankful to have those pushing me to keep fighting when all I wanted to do was give up.
Opening up not only gets it off your chest, but it also allows you to help someone else that may struggle with similar things, or it may help you see others’ perspectives on your situation.
The enemy doesn’t want us to be vulnerable. He doesn’t want us to open up about our fears and worries. He wants us to be isolated because he can get to us when we are alone.
6.Counseling
I don’t know where you stand on talking to a counselor or therapist, but I will tell you that I was initially reluctant to speak to a professional.
I had just started opening up to others around me, but I needed more. As I said, it was hard to trust for me, so I felt like I had to talk to my friends and family and needed someone most knowledgeable in this area to feel at ease.
Let me say; you don’t need to pay for counseling if you attend church. You have pastors, mentors, and counselors at your fingertips. Utilize them!
I am thankful to my pastors for helping me understand anxiety biblically, praying, and encouraging me to keep fighting because it was not some walk in the park.
I needed some encouragement on days that felt like it was impossible to shake it.
7.Find the root cause of anxiety as a Christian
Identify the root cause of why you feel anxious. Often, the real reason an anxious thought appears may have something to do that goes beneath the surface.
For me, this looks like health anxiety. I have had a lot of emergency room visits, a lot of scary situations, and doctor visits.
I guess you could call me a hypochondriac because I am always fearful of my health and fear that something is wrong with me.
Now why am I always fearful of my health? It goes deeper than having PTSD. I sat and thought about it. Well, why am I scared that something is wrong with me? I figured out that I was terrified to die.
Now dying isn’t something everyone is happy with, but they know that their day will come at the end of the day. That was terrifying because I didn’t know if I was “good enough” to make it to heaven.
I am a relatively new Christian, so I am learning about things individually and I knew it didn’t matter what I did. I cannot make God love me more or less. He loves me unconditionally.
Related : How To Be A Godly Woman
With that being said, He loves me so much that He sent His one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Long story short, all I have to do is believe that Jesus is the son of God and that he was sent here to save us from our sins.
This whole time I thought I had to be the perfect Christian to go to heaven when God wanted me as I was.
If you are a true believer, you will be transformed. You will be renewed, and all sins will be made clean. This does not mean you won’t ever sin again; this does not mean to keep sinning because “God will love me no matter what.”
Many people mistake God’s love as almost gentle, staying true to who you are, doing what makes you happy, and you do you boo, kind of love when God is a just God.
He will correct and convict us; when it is our time, we will all have to face His judgment.
I mention that because with being a true believer comes the natural desire to want to be better than you were before Christ.
This is why people confuse needing to be a “good” person to get to heaven with a true believer’s desires and transformation. But that is a story for another time.
8.Coping Methods
I had to learn about my anxiety as a Christian and I had to figure out what triggers it, what makes it worse, and what helps it go away.
I have mastered coping with my anxiety triggers and want to share some with you today.
When I feel like an anxiety attack is about to happen, I do either of these things: The number 5 rule, Removing myself from the area, or preparation.
Number 5 Rule
I met a lady in the emergency room and she told me she had struggled with severe anxiety and had been taking prescribed medicine and she was also going to therapy for it.
She mentioned that she was taught some techniques and explained that they worked so well that she could get off the medicine.
One of the techniques was the number 5 rule. During a panic attack, you have to pause and breathe. Look around you, and find five objects. For each object, you had to describe five things about it.
This technique helped me focus a little bit more on my breathing and focus. This took my brain out of flight or fight syndrome.
Remove Myself From The Area
The following method is to remove myself from the area. When I have an anxiety attack, it is usually when I go to bed. My brain likes to unravel everything from the day and focus on all the stress at once.
There have been countless times when I have woken my husband up, explained what was happening, and mentioned that I needed to go for a drive.
Going for a walk or a drive when I can do so has helped calm my nerves. It distracts me and helps me focus all at the same time.
It helps me focus on what I need to do: pray or worship. And it distracts me from the feeling of fear.
Preparation
The third method is preparation. I LIKE TO PREPARE when I feel overwhelmed and anxious about something or a specific event. Meaning I like to take notes; it helps me organize what’s going on in my mind.
If I have to pack for a trip but worry about becoming dehydrated and passing out, I ensure I am prepared with enough water/ food.
I tend to focus on the whole picture at once and far into the future. That is a bonus tip When I need to focus on the here and now.
Focus on one thing at a time. If it is not urgent, put it aside by writing a list of things you need to focus on in order of urgency and priority.
9.Bible Studies, Sermons, and Videos
Something I cling to, especially when I have an anxiety episode, is bible plans on my bible app. I look up bible studies that have something to do with anxious feelings and read them and get a quick reminder of God’s words.
I also like to watch sermons and YouTube videos about them because it helps me realize that I am not the only one who struggles with anxiety, and it helps explain what others go through.
Books are another great resource I love to use when overcoming my anxiety as a Christian. If you want to see what books I recommend to help to overcome fear, click here to read more.
10.Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway
My mom had given me a book titled “Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway.” This book was all about facing fears.
Face your fears when you are afraid. God knew I would need my husband regarding my anxiety because he is a good definition of a go-with-the-flow, not a care-in-the-world, relaxed guy.
My husband helped me face my fears. One little fear that I overcame was swimming in a lake. Don’t laugh; this was terrifying to me, lol!
Anyway, my husband and I live on a lake, and it’s a lovely lake where people are always swimming. He was one of those people who were always swimming.
I grew up in the water, so it killed me that I sat on the sidelines and watched everyone else have a good time in the water when I wanted to be with them so badly.
I let the fear of alligators stop me from doing what plenty of people do daily. It got to the point where I was fed up with not living life fully.
So my husband and I discussed how he would help me face the fear.
Some days were more challenging than others. He pushed me (metaphorically) when I was too scared to do it. So the more and more we pushed those boundaries, the easier it got.
We started small, literally dipping my toes in the water. Then, I went deeper and deeper each time until it was time to submerge fully.
I am proud to say that I am now joining my husband and friends in swimming in that lake!
No matter how small the fear may seem or how silly it may seem, it feels so real and terrifying. But it will never go away if you let it control you.
Take your anxiety by the horns, look it in its eyes, and say, “No more!”
Conclusion
Today we discussed ten tips on how to overcome your anxiety as a Christian. Instead of letting your anxiety walk over you and control your life, these tips teach you how to stand up to your anxiety and confront it. Don’t forget to follow me on my social, and to repost !
