Worry, anxiety, and fear have power in many of our lives. We allow them to imprison us rather than allowing God’s Word to free us. This devotional is intended to encourage you, embolden you, and guide you toward a life of peace in a troubled world. Worry, anxiety, and fear are not your portion, but peace is!
Baker Publishing
Day 1
The God of Hope
Scripture: Romans 15:13
Deadlines looming, job demands and instability, financial insufficiency, children’s poor decisions, relationship discord, military deployment, the stress of social media distraction and comparisons, the fear of missing out, and more things to do than hours in a day. Sound familiar? This is the breeding ground for worry, anxiety, and fear.
Sweaty palms, racing pulse, headaches, butterflies in the stomach, difficulty concentrating, feeling overwhelmed—any or all of these symptoms could indicate worry, anxiety, or fear. I’ve experienced them all and more. I’ve felt so wrapped up in knots that I wasn’t sure I could get out of bed in the morning or that I even wanted to.
Have you ever had any of the following conversations, even if only in your head? “I can’t do ____, because I’m afraid that _____.”
“I won’t do ____, because I’m worried about ____.”
“I’m not sure about ____, because I fear ____ might happen.”
If you have, then you, too, have come face-to-face with worry, anxiety, or fear. You are not alone. Worry, anxiety, and fear are considered the common cold of mental illness and are a direct path to losing our peace. “This is what the Lord says: ‘Cries of fear are heard—terror, not peace’” (Jeremiah 30:5, NIV).
I want you to know that it is possible for you, instead, to experience peace from the “God of hope” who Paul describes in Romans 15:13. It is possible to look worry, anxiety, and fear in the eye and laugh. It is possible to be content with where God has you, without needing to know His plan.
When difficult situations come, I desire to turn my back on worry, anxiety, and fear and retain my peace, trusting that God has allowed the difficulties for my good rather than feeling betrayed and abandoned by Him in the storm. I desire these things for you as well.
Lord, You are not the author of confusion, sadness, or despair. You came so that we might have abundant life. You came to give us peace despite our situations and circumstances. I pray that I would leave my worries, anxieties, and fears with You and receive Your peace in their place. In Jesus’s name, amen.
Day 2
A Thief in the Night
Scripture: Matthew 6:25–34
They stepped in like a thief in the night and stole from me, and stole from my family.
Things were going well, and then it happened—“it” being worry, anxiety, and fear. Almost like I’d given them a key to my front door, worry, anxiety, and fear let themselves in without even asking.
Actually, I did give them permission. I listened to them, entertained them, agreed with them, and let them stay. But in gaining entrance to my mind and heart, worry stole my joy. Anxiety stole my peace. Fear stole my present as it projected into my future. And all these things stole from my family because I couldn’t be truly present with them when I was worried about the past or the future.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus instructs us not to worry (Matthew 6:25–34). He puts his finger on our chief anxiety: How will I be provided for tomorrow?
We expend mental energy attempting to answer this question. We try to find a solution to each of the worries that may not even happen. Yet none of the “what-ifs” can be acted on because the calamitous events that we construct in our minds haven’t occurred. So we sit and brood, waiting for the worst to happen.
Jesus’s counter to this is our heavenly Father, the Author of life and the Creator of each individual, who knows our needs and desires. He instructs us to seek relationship with our Father first, and then all other things will fall into a proper perspective.
Jesus ends His sermon with a couple wry observations. He states that tomorrow will worry about its own things, so we shouldn’t worry about them now. We are not at tomorrow yet! We should take care of what we need to do today, but we shouldn’t be concerned about what tomorrow will bring. God is at tomorrow; we are not.
The one fundamental thing that God asks from us is that we believe, that we trust Him. We tend to approach life thinking, Show me, then I’ll trust you, but God tells us to trust Him, and then He’ll show us.
Father, help me to trust You more, prepare, and wait on You for the harvest of peace that You desire for me. Reveal to me the lies I have believed and how to counter them with Your truth. In Jesus’s name, amen.
Day 3
Is It God or Is It Me?
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 10:5
As God walked with me in my journey to relinquish worry, anxiety, and fear, He showed me that exchanging them for His peace isn’t a onetime event. It’s a process. I’m grateful that the book of Psalms gives us a glimpse of David’s struggle, a bit like spiritual whiplash. In one breath, he laments about his worries and fears, and in the next, he returns to profess his faith in God, who reigns bigger than all his fears.
The best way to prepare to fight worry, anxiety, and fear is to learn God’s Word and plant it firmly in our hearts. Then we must take our thoughts captive and discern if they are from God or from the enemy. When they’re from the enemy, we must exchange them for God’s truth, just as Paul instructs us in 2 Corinthians 10.
Many people have asked me how they can determine if their thoughts are from God or from the enemy. Here are some suggestions:
* When God speaks, He never contradicts the Bible or His character. That is why it’s so important to know what the Bible says.
* God never condemns or shames us like the enemy does. God forgives us, and His voice gently corrects us out of love, to keep us in a right relationship with Him.
* God leads us and stills us, whereas the enemy pushes and rushes us.
* God’s voice is comforting, calming, and reassuring, while the enemy worries, frightens, and stresses us.
* While the enemy confuses, God encourages. God is never the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33).
To gain freedom from worry, anxiety, and fear, we must shift the responsibility for all outcomes to God. We must choose not to be anxious but to keep our peace by trusting that just as God causes the leaves to remain green and a crop to grow, so He will help us fulfill whatever He asks of us. “Whatever he asks us to do, he equips us through!” When it comes to keeping our peace rather than letting our hearts become troubled or anxious, we have a choice to make: choose to trust in God’s powerful and loving provision or try to do it ourselves.
God, I want to take every thought captive in obedience to You. Help me to choose to trust in You instead of in myself. In Jesus’s name, amen.
Day 4
What I Dreaded Most
Scripture: Ephesians 6:12
When we allow the spirit of fear to operate in our lives, it is like we are putting a cast on an arm or a leg that doesn’t need it. We are allowing it to immobilize us and hinder us from effectively living in the center of the peace that God has offered us. We are not alone in our struggle. Scripture gives examples of biblical greats who also struggled with fear.
Consider Job. He was devoted to God and hated evil. Through Satan’s doing, all of Job’s livestock and shepherds were killed, his children were killed when a great wind leveled his son’s house, and Job was struck with painful sores over his entire body.
“What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil” (Job 3:25–26, NIV, emphasis added). The personal picture of disaster that Job had held in his heart made it easy for him to paint himself into the picture frame when that sequence of events came to pass.
Scripture repeatedly commands, “Do not be afraid,” “Do not fear,” “Do not worry,” and “Be anxious for nothing.” Ephesians 6:12 reminds us that our real struggle takes place in the spiritual realm. According to 2 Timothy 1:7, we must guard against the spirit of fear. Job’s devastating situation underscores a crucial truth: our thoughts have power. The enemy ushers havoc and trials into our lives when we agree with the spirit of fear instead of with God’s truth.
God doesn’t promise that we won’t experience difficult circumstances. Yet, when we fear or worry about something, we are more likely to look for evidence to confirm we have reason to fear.
God understands our humanness. He’s looking for an attitude of humility, a willingness to trust Him despite how difficult our circumstances appear, and a faith that says, “You are God and I am not, so I will trust in You.”
Father, thank You for being our strength and our peace. Thank You for caring about every detail of our lives. Lift the weight of worry from my shoulders. Help me to cast all my cares on You, confident that You will comfort and provide in every circumstance. In Jesus’s name, amen.
Day 5
The Father of Lies
Scripture: John 8:44
Do you ever feel as if your thoughts are tumbling around in your head like balls in a pinball machine? Will the insurance agent call me back? Can I pick up the kids from school without running out of gas? What will my boss think if I don’t get this sale?
I think we forget sometimes that all those everyday worries add up to an uncomfortable way of living, void of the peace God promises. Worry stems from believing the father of lies, the accuser of the brethren (John 8:44). I’ve taken his bait many times. Have you?
The enemy always wins when he convinces us to divert our attention from God to the details of to-do lists, overcrowded schedules, praiseworthy holiday costumes, perfectly set dinner tables. We focus on “impression management” with styled social media photos and status updates to engender likes, comments, and shares, as if they mean anything about our value and worth. We might even say yes to commitments when we’d rather not, just because we desire acceptance and affirmation. We work ourselves into a frenzy with insufficient rest because we don’t trust next month’s paycheck or perhaps because we’ve fallen victim to the lie that our worth is equal to our busyness or our possessions.
When we allow ourselves to become swallowed up in the urgency of the moment, the hour, or the day, we trade our peace for a counterfeit that never satisfies. When we aren’t intentional with our thoughts and actions, our habitual way of responding to life with worry sets the stage for unrest and discontentment.
We never see Jesus worried or hurried. He had enough ministry needs to meet to last multiple lifetimes, yet He had only three years to complete the work the Father sent Him to do. He wasn’t ruled by to-do lists or public perception. Never once did He rush to get more done. We never read of Him running to His next divine appointment. Rather, Jesus walked at a pace that was sustainable. He simply did the next thing His Father told Him to do, and that was enough.
I pray, Lord, that You will help me to lay down my worries and, instead, trust in Your perfect provision. Help me to recognize that when I worry, I am believing the enemy’s lies rather than Your promises. In Jesus’s name, amen.
Day 6
The Better Way
Scripture: Luke 10:38–42
Years ago, in the face of unanswered prayers for my son, I frequently thought back to the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10. As Jesus and the disciples traveled to Jerusalem, they stopped at Mary and Martha’s home. Mary sat at Jesus’s feet, listening to his teachings. But Martha was distracted by her dinner preparations. She complained to Jesus, asking him to see the unfairness of the situation and to make Mary help her in the kitchen.
Jesus replied, “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41–42, NLT). The NIV says, “Mary has chosen what is better” (v. 42, emphasis added).
As a parent, nothing tempts me to worry more than concern for my children. During that difficult week with my son, I let the concerns that preoccupied my mind distract my heart. When the results didn’t go as I’d hoped, I echoed Martha’s complaint: “Lord, doesn’t it seem unfair to you?”
God replied by asking, “Will you trust me when you cannot see My hand at work? Will you trust that I am always good and My plans for you are always good? Will you choose what is better?”
I had a choice to make. The enemy screamed, “God doesn’t care. If He cared, you would’ve gotten the answer you wanted.” I had to choose to believe the truth of God’s Word: God is sovereign. He knows the good plans He has for me and my child, which include a hopeful future (Jeremiah 29:11). And He promises to work all things together for our good—even this unfortunate situation (Romans 8:28).
My tearful answer was a prayerful “Yes, Lord. I trust you. And I praise you in and through the storm. May the seeds that have been planted in faith be watered by these tears to grow a harvest for Your glory.”
Worrying never accomplishes anything, but trust opens up a world of possibility and allows God to change everything.
Father, You know the days are long, and the pressures are many. I thank You that while we may plan our course, You establish our steps. Help me to trust You, even when I can’t see You at work. In Jesus’s name, amen.
Day 7
What If?
Scripture: Psalm 139
When my husband was diagnosed with cancer for the second time, I jumped into a familiar coping pattern: staying busy. I alerted family and friends to the news and answered the plethora of questions with what little sure information we had. I prepared freezer meals for the weeks when doctors’ appointments and chemotherapy treatments would keep us too busy to shop or cook. I rearranged my work schedule to accommodate the myriad new appointments that took priority.
In my effort to control the uncontrollable, the busyness overwhelmed me and left me exhausted until finally one day I collapsed in a pile on the floor and wept. My mind ran to all the “what-ifs?” that cancer brings. As I desperately cried out to God, I heard His familiar question yet again: “What if . . . you trusted me?”
What if you believed that this didn’t take Me by surprise? (Psalm 139:16; Matthew 6:8)
What if you believed I really do work all things together for your good? (Romans 8:28)
What if you remembered I know the plans I have for you, and I have declared that My plans for you are good, and they include a future and a hope? (Jeremiah 29:11)
What if you remembered I am good, My ways are good, and My love for you is everlasting? (Jeremiah 31:3)
What if you remembered I proved myself faithful to you when you went through this before, and knowing I am the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, you believed I will be faithful through this as well? (Hebrews 13:8)
What if you stopped listening to the father of lies, who fills your mind with what-ifs, and listened only to the voice of your heavenly Father, who speaks truth and love? (John 17:17)
As I dried my tears, I found a new determination to let go of the anxiety-producing what-ifs and take hold of the prevailing peace God promises. Because even if, God is still big enough to handle whatever comes my way, and none of it takes Him by surprise.
Father, You know all the what-ifs on my heart today. I want to replace them with the truth of who You are. Your love for me isn’t something I have to wonder about the way I wonder about so many other things. Help me to live in the peace of this reality. In Jesus’s name, amen.