I am nothing if not an anxious soul. I come from a long line of anxious men. Well, a line of two at least, which is as far back as I am aware. But the anxiety seems to be genetic. It’s possible I wasn’t born with this anxiety and it has been imbued in me over years of picking up anxious vibes off the anxious men who passed their anxieties on to me by osmosis, but however you cut it, it seems inherited somehow.

The reason I can say this with some confidence is the anxieties take the same weird form. I often don’t worry about the things normal people might worry about. The worries that loom large in my mind, though things that might objectively happen and be at issue, are really not the most objectively concerning parts. Worry of this sort rarely did much for anyone, but try as I might, I can’t just flip a switch and turn it off.

Some would be quick to point to Jesus’ words. Doesn’t he say, ‘do not worry’? Isn’t this just a lack of faith? It sounds mighty close to sin for a lot of people. Which is all well and good, but I am not choosing to worry. I actively don’t want to worry. I trust in Jesus despite my worry. But here I am, anxious and worried nonetheless. Telling me it’s sinful and to just stop doesn’t turn it off!

I am minded to think Jesus’ instruction not to worry means something a little different to how we often hear him. The word he uses is the same one from the parable of sower when discussing the seed that fell among thorns. This is the word often translated ‘cares of the world’ and does not necessarily equate to anxiety. Rather, certainly in the parable of the sower, it means something closer to over-preoccupation with the ordinary matters of the world causing you to push out concern for the Lord and service of his kingdom. I am minded to think Jesus has something of this in mind in his ‘do not worry’ command. Do not become preoccupied with the things of the world and ordinary daily concerns to the detriment of the Lord and his kingdom.

For this reason, I am not convinced Jesus is just telling anxious people to buck up and stop worrying because God has everything in hand. I suspect he is telling preoccupied people prone to ignore the Lord because they’re too busy sorting out life’s basics to worry a little less about those things and trust in God a little more. It doesn’t seem to me that Jesus is callously telling anxious people who wish they were not so anxious to just stop, trust in God and let go of the worry. At the same time, it doesn’t seem to be God’s best for us to be mired in debilitating anxiety either!

Apart from, our calculations of God’s best often don’t equate to our view of what is best. What we think will serve us best often isn’t what actually serves us best. I know whatever my anxieties, I maintain that God’s love for me is ultimate, he intends the best for me and he is good. Which leads me to the belief that if I would glorify God more through an anxiety-free existence, he would probably have made me the most calm and untroubled person in the world! That I continue to trust in him and hold to his goodness and seek to honour him despite my anxieties suggests the anxiety in itself may be a feature of the means by which God is seeking to glorify himself through me.

Now, we need to be careful here. That does not mean every expression of my anxiety is good and acceptable. It does not mean that anxiety in and of itself is good. That way lies justifying every sin we might ever commit and calling post-fall bugs inherently good and godly features. That would be a form of the old Pelagian heresy. So, to be clear, I am not saying my every response to anxiety cannot be sinful nor that anxiety itself is a fundamental good. Neither thing would be true.

What I am saying, however, is that God has designed the world for his maximal glory. He even folds in the bugs and flaws of fallen world into his good and maximally glorifying plans. I believe that God has afflicted me with the kind of worry and anxiety that I have because I suspect I would trust him and pray and think about him far less if he didn’t. Whatever else you may want to say about it, I know I pray and rely on the Lord more because of these worries than I do when everything is sailing along just fine (as I judge it). However else you cut it, that means the worry and anxiety brings more glory to God ultimately than if it simply wasn’t there.

I am also saying that anxiety and worry in and of themselves, whilst not good, are not necessarily sinful. I understand Jesus’ most famous words about worry to be in line with ‘cares of the world’ as described above (I understand Paul in Philippians to be using the word similarly). The modern understanding of anxiety and worry functions closer to something like an illness¹ that is not what God originally created, is a product of the fall, is not good of itself but may provoke us to honour and glorify God or sinfully dishonour him by our response to it. That is to say, I am not convinced anxiety and worry are inherently sinful but our response to them may or may not be.

What I know from personal experience is that my stupid anxieties (and they are stupid) tend to make me lean into the Lord, not away from him. My worries seem to make me pray more and cause me to remember more clearly that God is good, the Lord loves me and he has all things under his control. As I judge it, worry and anxiety is an affliction, but as with all post-fall bugs in the world, the Lord uses even that which was not his original design to serve his glory and grow his people.

1. For the record, I am not suggesting worry is an illness as such. I couldn’t think of a more succinct way to explain how our typical usage of the word ‘worry’ isn’t necessarily what Jesus was speaking about and so worry should be viewed as an affliction that can lead us to rely on God more or may lead us to sinfully respond to it. ↩︎