Is anxiety a sin?
Do you struggle with anxiety?
When I work through my weekly reflections, one of the things that frequently falls into the “not working” category is anxiety. I’m neither a doctor nor a psychologist, but my understanding is that there is a physiological component to anxiety (hormones, anyone?) as well as emotional and spiritual elements.
The Bible talks about anxiety - “Do not anxious for anything but with everything, through prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7
That verse has led many to believe that being anxious is a choice and a sin - that if we just pray enough and trust God, then we shouldn’t be anxious at all. Having lived with anxiety for several years, I believe that’s an oversimplification of the situation. Does a lack of prayer and trust in God lead to anxiety? Absolutely! Does prayer and faith in God’s provision help to reduce anxiety? Definitely. Do we have a choice as to whether to be anxious or not? Well, to some degree, but maybe not entirely…
We can choose our response to feeling anxious. We can choose to engage in practices that help to get our minds out the anxiety rut, get exercise, etc. But it’s still a battle, and it usually doesn’t just disappear.
Is it a sin? Well, Jesus seemed pretty anxious before He went to the cross (Matthew 26:36-42). And we know that Jesus doesn’t sin. That leads me to think that anxious thoughts are part of the normal human experience. But Jesus didn’t stay there - He submitted to the Father’s will and did what He was called to do. We would do well to do the same.
I came across a podcast episode by Dr. Alison Cook, “The Best Of You”, where she was interviewing Curtis Chang, the author of a book called “The Anxiety Opportunity”. The episode is titled, “Can I Pray My Anxiety Away? A Surprising Approach to the Anxiety Pandemic & How to Walk Yourself and Your Kids Through it.”
I have listened to her podcast before and read her book, “The Best of You”, and was intrigued! After listening to the interview, I bought and read Cheng’s book. I highly recommend it! The author does indeed have a surprising approach to anxiety. Our typical goal is to try and eliminate anxiety. We see it as bad, maybe even sinful, we don’t like it, so the goal is to get rid of it. However, there are a couple of problems with that. First, when we are desperate to get rid of anxiety, it frequently results in making it worse, not better. Secondly, there really is no avoiding anxiety this side of eternity.
He explains that, “The fear of loss is the spiritual essence of anxiety. Anxiety is about the tomorrow, the future. Anxiety tries to make us fear something that could happen later.” (p. 23) Since on this side of eternity, there will always be loss - culminating in the ultimate loss, which is death - there will always be the tendency to be anxious. But the piece that we tend to forget is that as Christ followers, we get everything that we lose back again at the resurrection! That’s our hope. Yes, bad things will happen. We will experience loss - our health, our finances, and ultimately our lives. But God promises a physical, bodily resurrection, just like Jesus had! (1 Corinthians 15:35-57) Keeping that bigger picture in mind should help to ease our anxiety.
This life is temporary and fragile. God never promised that it would be otherwise. But our hope is that He is with us in it, and then will restore us with “imperishable” bodies.
I found the book to be super practical, both in reframing my understanding of anxiety and also providing practical tools to battle it on a daily basis. I hope that if you struggle in this area that you check it out.