This is more than the power of positivity or a gratitude journal. The goodness of God alleviates more anxiety than a swaggering self-confidence because it frees you from that dreadful cell of…you. The antidote to anxiety is basking in the truth—God’s got this.

Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad. – Proverbs 12:25

One of my biggest beefs with sociology is that it tends to be heavy on problems, light on solutions. In its zeal to be labeled as science, it strives to appear objective. Sociology collects heaps of data in order to draw correlations or visualize cultural trajectories. But then, by its own constraints, it has nothing more to say. The problems pop off the page while the solutions are left up to…well, someone! The government, maybe?

Contemporary Christian writing has largely taken the same course. Fortunately, the Bible has a different approach. Take anxiety for example. This proverb doesn’t spend any time analyzing why your parents, career, the economy, or climate change have made you anxious. Social media is an environment that incubates anxiety, but it didn’t create it, otherwise Jesus wouldn’t have had to preach about it.

The Bible assumes anxiety is just there, in the air we breathe.

Therefore, in fighting anxiety, let’s go beyond one more prohibition (less screens), and look at how God pushes from the opposite direction. He tells us to bring a good word.

How to bring a good word.

1. Talk about positives

What unexpected blessings did you receive?

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