Anxiety is always ready to strike up the band and come marching into our thoughts like a ticker-tape parade of terrible possibilities. Anxiety is strong enough to wrestle logic into the dust and shred love into a tattered, thread bare shadow of what it should be.

Our anxious thoughts are rooted in fear, even when that fear is unjustified.

A Hike Gone Wrong

The sun was setting, and we’d lost the trail back to where we’d left our vehicle. Because we’d lost the trail, we’d been forced to navigate much rougher terrain and my knees were shot. My steps were slow. And somewhere along the way, I dropped my cell phone. After thinking of some likely possibilities for places it might be, my husband headed back up the trail determined to find it. What should have been a pleasant day hike had taken a turn we hadn’t expected. Now I was alone in the darkening forest, and anxiety set in.

I could hear the stream that would lead us back to the parking area. I knew if I followed the sound I would eventually get there. It was fall in the mountains, so a night spent in the forest would be unpleasant, but not life threatening. I knew the odds of me and my husband getting back down safely were entirely in our favor. All those things were truth. And yet . . . anxiety became my greatest companion.

It displaced logic and reason to send me into a near panicked state of being (not a good frame of mind for handling my actual state of being). The level of anxiety I experienced was unjustified. But that’s the way anxiety works. Give it an inch and it’ll take a mile.

We are a fearful people, and our anxiety is rooted in that fear.

Life Has an Enemy

The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, To turn one away from the snares of death. Proverbs 14:27(NKJV).

The word used for fear in this verse means reverence. In other words, when we have a proper respect for who God is, we will be sustained by the fountain of life.

Fear is not a bad thing. Misdirected fear is. Scripture tells us there is only one thing we should fear, and that fear will be to us a fountain of life. 

But life has an enemy. And that enemy has a long—and successful—history of planting doubt in the hearts of men and women. 

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” Genesis 3:1 (NKJV).

A tiny question—did God really say?

And mankind has experienced the trap of doubting the goodness of God ever since.

This is the root of our anxiety. Handed down to us from Adam and Eve is the tiny seed of doubt that lingers deep within us.

Will God really do what He says?

Does God really love me, forgive me, have plans and a purpose for me?

Can I really trust the goodness of God?

If we’re honest, we’ve all asked ourselves these questions at least once in our lives. And the answer we accept makes all the difference. 

The Crucial Answer

Before we answer these questions, let us remember that God’s Word tells us the spirit of fear that causes anxiety isn’t from God.

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV)

Nothing destroys our power, love, and sound mind faster and more thoroughly than anxiety.

So how do we uproot the anxiety that grows from the seed of doubt? By “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,” (see 2 Corinthians 10:5 NKJV).

Armed with the truth of God’s word, we take our doubts—the soil in which our anxiety grows—captive and cast them on Christ as we are instructed in 1 Peter 5:7 NKJV: “casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.”