Pressure Pointsნიმუში

Breaking Free from Anxiety

Anxiety is everywhere. Our culture is absolutely soaked in it.

The yoke of our world—Be better, earn more, look impressive, achieve it all, stay busy—is a shortcut guaranteed to lead to anxiety. Our addiction to devices, the 24-hour news cycle, and social isolation only make it worse.

Many of us live with a baseline level of stress that makes it difficult to truly relax. We sit down with an ice-cold drink in an idyllic location, and our brains just keep ticking—running through to-do lists, future fears, and what others think of us. Even the most precious moments can be hijacked by worry.

There is so much happening around us that we feel the need to take control and hold everything together. We become stewards of a constant hum that needs to be quietened.

But this isn’t a new problem. Imagine Jerusalem in the time of the early church. Under Roman occupation, facing persecution, with poor sanitation, high mortality, and no financial safety nets—that sounds pretty stressful!

Jesus Himself lived in that environment, and yet He was (and is) the Prince of Peace. How? Because He carried peace within Himself. It wasn’t about His surroundings—it came from within.

In Philippians 4:6, Paul says, “Do not be anxious about anything…”. At first glance, that can seem a bit rich. Anyone who’s felt anxious before knows that simply being told, “Don’t be anxious,” isn’t very helpful. We’d sarcastically want to reply, “Oh thanks, I hadn’t thought of that.”

But that’s not all Paul said. He followed it up by saying, “...but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” The reason we can lay down our anxiety is precisely because we can bring it straight to the Creator of the universe.

It’s not denial of a problem. It’s burden transfer!

When we do, we’re told that “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

That’s an incredible promise. We trade our worries for His peace!

Peter echoes this when he writes, “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:7). All of it.

It doesn’t mean our worries are instantly vapourised, but that we learn, over time, to lay them at Jesus’ feet and take up His peace in exchange.

When you feel anxious, pause. Invite God into your worries and hand them to Him. Let Him show you what’s really important, and how much greater He is than your concerns.

As the old hymn Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus puts it:
“O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
all because we do not carry
everything to God in prayer!”

Let’s Pray
Jesus, You know the worries I carry. I bring them to You now and choose to trust You with them. Help me to receive Your peace. Guard my heart and mind today, and help me to rest in You. Amen.