How Christians Can Move Beyond the Shame of Anxiety and Into Wholeness
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Have you ever felt guilty about experiencing anxiety?
If you read the Bible often or spend a lot of time in the church, you’re probably familiar with verses like this one: “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done” (Philippians 4:6).
It’s easy to read this and feel ashamed whenever anxiety hijacks our hearts. This shame can cause us to pull away from the God who is our peace. It can lead us to deny our struggle, suppress our concerns, or just try harder to stop worrying — as if we could overcome our inner turmoil by the sheer force of our will.
God calls us to something far more holistic and relational.
As humans made in his image, we’re emotional beings like the Creator we reflect. Scripture reveals a God who experiences a range of emotions. He’s not disappointed by the big feelings we face. In fact, when we carry personal concerns, experience life crises, or encounter the world’s brokenness, it’s natural to feel deeply troubled. To not feel this turmoil would not be human.
As someone who’s dealt with more than a little worry in my life, even needing anti-anxiety medication during especially difficult seasons, this topic lives close to my heart. I want to walk faithfully with God and practice wise mental health habits.
Is it possible to do both?
Scripture reveals that it is. Let’s do a deep dive into God’s Word and discover a healthy framework for tending to our inner and outer lives.
First, however, it’s important to acknowledge that not all anxiety is created equal.
Holistic Mental Health
In my early adult years, I viewed anxiety as sin and depression as a lack of faith. Then a series of events turned my life upside down. Depression became my constant companion. Anxiety clouded my thinking. Panic attacks had me pulling over on the side of the road because I couldn’t breathe.
I still loved Jesus. I still read my Bible and went to church and clung to my faith. That’s when I learned there’s more to the story.
We humans are complex creatures. Our bodies are no less sacred than our spirits. Our emotions were created by God as much as our minds. What affects one part of us impacts the whole.
When we talk about anxiety, we must acknowledge the importance of holistic care. God uses pastors and doctors, therapists and naturopaths, friends and professionals to help us along the way. As we look at what Scripture says about anxiety, let’s honor the sacredness of our whole selves. Let’s lean into faith while also taking care of our bodies, minds, and emotions.
Anxiety in the Bible
In the New Testament’s original Greek, the most common word for worry is merimnaó. Bible Hub defines it this way: “to be anxious, to worry, to care for.” From this definition, we see it’s used with both negative and positive connotations. Check out the following verses. (Each bolded word is merimnaó in the original text.)
“Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?” (Matthew 6:25).
“’Martha, Martha,’ the Lord answered, ‘you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed — or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her’” (Luke 10:41-42).
“I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs — how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world — how he can please his wife — and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world — how she can please her husband” (1 Corinthians 7:32-34).
“There should be no division in the body, but its parts should have equal concern for each other” (1 Corinthians 12:25).
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6).
“I have no one else like Timothy, who genuinely cares about your welfare” (Philemon 2:20).
Context Clues
To understand whether this word is used negatively or positively, let’s consider the context of each passage.
In Matthew 6, Jesus warned his followers not to merimnaó about daily necessities because it’s ineffective (verse 27). Paul echoed these instructions in Philippians 4. Worrying doesn’t change our situation for the better. Instead, such anxiety takes our eyes off the Father who cares for us, convincing us we must meet our own needs. It blinds us to God’s deep love for us as his treasured children and robs us of the peace that comes from bringing our needs to him in heartfelt prayer.
In 1 Corinthians 7 and 12 and Philemon 2, on the other hand, the same word is used to indicate healthy concern for others. Husbands and wives should care for one another, as should all believers in God’s family. We ought to know and love each other well, working toward unity so we can build healthy relationships.
We can, however, idolize taking care of others, as we see in Martha’s life (Luke 10). Like Martha, we can allow concern for others to distract us from resting in and receiving from Christ. We may even assume God measures our worth and value by how well we serve him and others.
From these context clues, we discover that merimnaó is a bad thing when it turns us inward — to self-sufficiency, to forgetting God’s love, to meeting others’ needs in unhealthy ways. When we recognize this in our souls, our Father invites us to come to him boldly, pour out our hearts, and receive his peace and provision.
Grammar Matters
In John’s gospel, we find a related Greek word — tarassō. The NLT translates this as “deeply troubled.” Blue Letter Bible describes tarassō this way: “to cause one inward commotion, take away his calmness of mind, disturb his equanimity.”
My goodness, do I know how this feels. From a heart-piercing comment thrown my way, to life coming unraveled at the seams, any number of factors can disturb my soul.
Jesus felt this inward agony, too. At Lazarus’ tomb, he saw the anguish of the people around him and was deeply troubled (John 11:33). When he told his disciples about his impending betrayal, abandonment, and death, tarassō again described the state of his soul (John 12:27, 13:21.)
Yet in John 14:1 and 27, after expressing his own inner turmoil, Jesus used the same word to instruct his disciples not to let their hearts be troubled. Since Scripture tells us Jesus never sinned, he can’t be pulling a, “do what I say, not what I do” move. So, what’s going on here?
Looking at the Greek verb tenses provides some beautiful insight. When Jesus was “deeply troubled,” the verb indicates a simple action. It merely describes his lack of calmness, the presence of inward commotion in his soul. The circumstances around him and the events ahead of him were deeply disturbing — and rightly so.
In John 14, on the other hand, the verb tense indicates continuous action. Jesus had just told them he was going away, and he knew their hearts were deeply unsettled. Again, the feeling was only natural. He didn’t condemn them for experiencing this — he knew the feeling himself! But he warned them not to stay there.
God Cares for Our Well-Being
1 John 5:3 describes God’s commands as “not burdensome” and his instructions against worry beautifully illustrate this truth. When Jesus tells his disciples not to worry, he does so for their own good, as we can see from looking back at our first Greek word.
Merimnaó comes from the root word mérimna, meaning “a part, separated from the whole…dividing and fracturing a person's being into parts.” Worry pulls us apart on the inside. It hinders us from living in healthy connection to God, ourselves, and others. So, when God tells us not to worry, he demonstrates his tender concern for our inner wholeness and reveals his gentle, loving heart.
As followers of Jesus, peace is our inheritance. Otherworldly peace. Peace that passes understanding. Peace that can’t be ultimately destroyed by chaos, suffering, or loss. This is God’s heart for his people, the reason he calls us not to stay stuck in anxiety.
But how do we get there? How do we trade peace for worry? How do we choose trust over doubt?
Bringing God Our Whole Selves
When God calls us to love him with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength (Mark 12:30), he’s inviting us into embodied faith, into a relationship where we’re already loved, into freedom to bring him our authentic selves — anxiety and all. Just as Jesus didn’t condemn his first-century followers for feeling troubled, he offers his followers today zero condemnation as well (Romans 8:1).
So, when our hearts become deeply troubled, when anxiety fractures our souls, when troubles of hurricane proportions overcome our sense of inner peace, we can find good company in Jesus. Instead of relegating us to the shadows of shame, he invites us to draw near and pour out our souls. To tell him what’s going on in our bodies, to verbalize the doubts plaguing our minds, to welcome him into the corners of our beings and know he’ll meet us with grace.
The Antidote to Anxiety
Once we’ve brought God our authentic selves, he invites us to rest in his loving acceptance and tender care. For in this place of quiet vulnerability, God often reveals aspects of his character we could only see with our souls laid bare.
Anxiety tells us God isn’t good. It drives us to take care of ourselves. It paints the future as bleak and our options as human-sized.
Jesus, on the other hand, calls us to trust him (John 14:1) — not a type of mind-over-matter trust, but trust that’s the overflow of a relationship where we experience God as beautiful and good. When Jesus told his disciples not to worry, he rooted these instructions in the theology of a God who values us, who knows our needs, who cares deeply and provides lovingly, and who works all things for our good.
So, when life disquiets our souls, let’s lead our hearts to the presence of God and let him guard our hearts with his peace.
Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Elle Mundus
