Anxious people feel anxious about everything, including their anxiety. When we read the biblical exhortations and feel as if we’ve gained no success in our struggle, we feel anxious about our anxiety. It gets worse. We feel defeated. We feel like lousy Christians. We need biblical truth, but we also need to get a hold of the emotional roller coaster we’re on, and for some, physical conditions are crucial. 

This past week, I read an interesting article about anxiety, written by Justin Taylor at the Gospel Coalition. The title, 8 Arguments for Why You Should Be Anxious Today, was provocative, so I clicked on it. For some people who struggle with anxiety, it would be an excellent resource. For some, it would only drive them to being more anxious.

I found the approach, speculating (albeit facetiously, I assume) about whether or not anxiety is “worth it” a little perplexing. Notions of “worth,” whether serious or not, don’t enter the mind of someone struggling with anxiety. It just happens. Believe it or not, people don’t choose to feel anxious. They choose how to cope with it, but even then, it’s not always as easy as some (probably the people who have never struggled with it) make it out to be. Anxiety is like a lion inside, waiting to roar, and we often don’t know when that’s coming.

I have had out of control anxiety. I suspect that I will continue to be sensitive in this area. This time, last year, had I read Justin Taylor’s article, I would have thrown something through my monitor. The truth is that anxious Christians, those who struggle on an ongoing basis, know those truths. We’ve read the Bible. We’ve underlined verse after verse, written them in our journals, put them on index cards on our desk or refrigerator. And we still struggle. We know anxiety is not worth it. Anxiety is not something everyone can turn on and off like a switch. And everyone’s situation is different. As my good friend Persis commented recently, human beings are much more complicated than we want them to be.

If you know someone who struggles with anxiety, be cautious about sharing articles like Taylor’s. We all like to help, and it’s easy to just send someone a well-meaning article. However, if the person’s anxiety is out of control, it may be like talking to a wall. They may think you are not very sympathetic, that you don’t understand. Whereas I can read the post today, and appreciate it, when my anxiety was out of control, I would have only felt worse.

Anxious people feel anxious about everything, including their anxiety.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The link (URL) to the original article is unavailable and has been removed.]