by I am reading Timothy Lane’s book, Living Without Worry: How to Replace Anxiety with Peace. I was gifted this book by a friend several years ago.
I started reading it, but never quite finished it.
When she got me this book, I was going through a period of worry and anxiety, and I do not remember right now what I was worried about. Yet it seemed I was worried enough to share with a trusted friend. And she was caring enough to do something about it, not just tell me, “eat well and keep warm.”
The lesson here is the futility of worry and anxiety. You worry over things so much that you get sick, and then a few years down the line, you do not even remember what you were worried about.
“…Be anxious for nothing…”
For a long time, I read those words as if they belonged to people whose lives were somehow less complicated than mine. People who had their finances sorted, their health intact, their relationships stable, and their future mapped out neatly.
Then anxiety stopped being an abstract concept and became something I lived with every day.
And I am not talking about the way we casually say, “I’m stressed.” As Kenyans, many of us are stressed right now. The economy is difficult. The future feels uncertain. Life can feel heavy.
The kind of anxiety that eventually led me to seek help from a psychiatrist. The kind that would convince me that something is seriously wrong with my body, and there were physical symptoms to go with the thoughts. It sent me from one medical test to another, looking for an explanation.
At first, I was convinced I was physically ill. My body felt strange. My heart raced. I felt constantly tired and on edge. Surely there had to be something medically wrong. Yet I was losing weight at an alarming rate (although I am not complaining about the weight loss. I had kinda given up on the weight loss. Kumbe, all I needed was anxiety and loss of appetite!) To be fair, despite all these, I was still jogging every weekday. That helped a lot with the weight loss and the racing thoughts.
I saw many experts. I had appointments with a clinical officer, a medical officer, a physician, a neurologist, and an endocrinologist. I did a battery of tests: a brain scan, a heart echocardiogram, and several conversations with professionals and wannabe professionals. The truth became clear. There was nothing seriously wrong with my body.
Years of worry, chronic stress, and inadequate sleep had finally presented me with the bill. Looking back now, I can see that anxiety rarely arrives overnight. It accumulates quietly. One unresolved worry becomes another. One sleepless night becomes a habit. One stressful season stretches into months and then years. Eventually, the mind and body begin waving red flags that can no longer be ignored.
I’m happy to report that I am much better now. Not perfectly healed or even immune to anxiety. But better. Much better.
Part of that healing has involved relearning something I have known intellectually for years but struggled to live consistently: I am not meant to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. And I am not what I do. I am worthy and valuable regardless of what I do.
The Lord is Our Stability
As a Christian, I have been challenged repeatedly by a verse that feels particularly relevant in uncertain times:
“The LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; it is he who will save us.” And later in the same chapter, God promises to be “the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge.” — Isaiah 33:22, 6
Some translations render Isaiah 33:6 as: “He will be the stability of your times.”
That image has stayed with me. Stability is exactly what anxiety tries to steal. Anxiety tells us that everything depends on us. That if we think hard enough, plan carefully enough, anticipate every possible disaster, and remain vigilant every second of the day, we can somehow secure the future.
But we cannot.
There is a reason the Bible repeatedly calls us to trust God. Human beings are terrible at carrying burdens we were never designed to carry. That does not mean Christians should ignore anxiety or pretend it does not exist. In fact, one of the most helpful lessons I learned came from both my faith and my psychology training: acknowledging anxiety is not the same thing as surrendering to it.
Many well-meaning Christians hear “do not be anxious” and conclude that anxiety itself is evidence of spiritual failure. That interpretation creates guilt on top of suffering.
Scripture paints a more compassionate picture. Have you read the Psalms? They are filled with fear, grief, uncertainty, distress and David talking to his heart and reminding it not to be anxious. Jesus himself experienced deep anguish in Gethsemane. God does not ask us to pretend we are fine. He invites us to bring our fears to him honestly.
What Psychology Says
From a psychological perspective, anxiety often thrives in secrecy and avoidance. The more we try to suppress fearful thoughts, the stronger they tend to become. One evidence-based approach involves learning to notice anxious thoughts without immediately accepting them as facts.
For example, instead of saying:
“I am definitely going to fail.”
You learn to say:
“I am having the thought that I am going to fail.”
That small shift creates distance between you and the anxiety.
Another helpful practice is focusing on what is actually within your control. Anxiety constantly drags us into imagined futures. Psychology encourages grounding ourselves in the present moment. Faith encourages a similar posture when Jesus says:
“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” (Matthew 6:34)
Neither psychology nor Christianity asks us to ignore the future. Both remind us that we can only live one day at a time. If I could offer advice to someone currently struggling with anxiety, it would be this:
First, seek help when you need it. There is no prize for suffering alone. Talk to trusted friends, pastors, counsellors, psychologists, or psychiatrists. God often works through people.
Second, take sleep seriously. I called myself a night owl and underestimated the impact of chronic sleep deprivation for years. The brain is remarkably resilient, but it is not invincible.
I’m happy to announce that I’m no longer a night owl. I’m out like a bulb by latest, 11 pm. It’s very likely that age is finally catching up with me, especially since we laugh at how our bedroom now smells more of Kaluma than scented candles, but I take sleep very seriously.
Third, challenge catastrophic thinking. Ask yourself: What evidence supports this fear? What evidence contradicts it? What would I say to a friend facing the same situation? In psychology, catastrophizing is a thinking pattern where a person automatically assumes the worst possible outcome will happen, even when there is little evidence for it. It is considered a type of cognitive distortion, a term used in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to describe inaccurate or unhelpful ways of thinking that can increase anxiety, stress, and depression.
Have you ever sent a message and don’t get a reply for a few hours and your thoughts conclude “They must be angry with me.” Your ears ring and you conclude your brain is about to explode. You get a puncture and conclude that the universe is against you and your life is ruined. Oftentimes,things aren’t that serious.
Fourth, pray honestly. Not polished prayers. Honest ones. The kind found throughout the Psalms.
And finally, remember that worry is not preparation. That lesson took me a long time to learn. For years, part of me believed that worrying was responsible. That if I worried enough, I could somehow prevent bad things from happening. I could not.
Most of the things I worried about never happened. The things that did happen were often different from what I expected. And the challenges that truly mattered were faced one day at a time, with God’s help and the support of people around me.
These days, when I feel anxiety knocking at the door, I try to remember that my security does not come from perfect plans, endless vigilance, or my own strength.
It comes from the God who promises to be the stability of our times. And that is a much safer place to rest than my own worried mind.
Shalom
