Conquering Anxiety: Embracing God’s Love

I’ve come to believe in a better equation to describe what anxiety does: anxiety equals care minus God. We use the word care for both anxiety and love. We speak of not having a care in the world: that’s about anxiety. We tell someone we care for them: that’s love. The thing is, peace and love are very good friends.

Anxiety and love have a hard time hanging out together.

Anxiety is concern that isn’t rooted in the faithful presence of God. It has become detached from the love of God or has lost touch with its reality. Without faith I can’t be at home in the pleasure of God. In anxiety, I can’t either. Worry has a way of blinding me to the measureless faithfulness of Christ, who is Immanuel— God-with-me. God-with-me is my greatest protection from anxious fretting. Worry focuses on my shortcomings or challenges and doesn’t notice the far greater realities of God’s goodness, power, and love with me.

Care does good things for the beloved. Anxiety doesn’t. It is a negation rather than a positive action. I find that I’m more able to love others when I’m rooted in the soil of trust, confidence, and knowing myself loved by God. I then care for others from abundance. My worry doesn’t give good things to the ones I’m worrying about.

This is what praying our anxieties helps us remember. We can root our anxious concerns into the love of God. We can off er our worrisome cares into the care of our Father. This can transform them from fruitless worries to fruitful love. I can redeem the passion and energy of my worries.

My anxiety often feels like an echo chamber of my own thoughts that becomes noisier over time. When I allow God’s Spirit to draw my attention away from my own concerns to notice and engage the concerns of others, my anxiety often quiets. When I think about others, pray for others, reach to others, care for others, I am less overwhelmed by my own anxious thoughts. My attention is drawn away from the centrifugal force of my own worry.

Love displaces both fear and worry.

I CALL YOU FRIENDS

Jesus speaks about his and the Father’s love for us in his words to his inner circle in the upper room. “You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:14‑15). What inviting words Jesus speaks.

I’ve found that my inner vision of Jesus impacts my anxiety levels. How do I assume Jesus is relating to me: as a servant, or as a friend? When I think of myself first as servant—mostly as someone who does things for Jesus—I tend to measure myself by what I am (or am not) accomplishing in my service. But Jesus tells his inner circle that he doesn’t think of them (or us) first as servants, but as friends (John 15:15).

I’ve realized that trusting in the love of God in Christ can be an overarching reality even in the presence of strong and unpleasant emotion (like my anxiety). I don’t have to avoid or hide from anxiety. I can acknowledge its presence amid the greater presence of God’s love. At home in God’s love, I thrive and anxiety doesn’t.

Alan Fadling (MDiv, Fuller Theological Seminary) is president and founder of Unhurried Living in Mission Viejo, California, inspiring people to rest deeper, live fuller, and lead better. He speaks and consults internationally with organizations such as Saddleback Church, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Cru, Halftime Institute, Apprentice Institute, and Open Doors International.

He is the award-winning author of An Unhurried Leader and An Unhurried Life, which was honored with a Christianity Today Award of Merit in spirituality. He is also coauthor (with Gem Fadling) of What Does Your Soul Love? His most recent book is A Year of Slowing Down.