3 Biblical Ways to Overcome Anxiety: Meditation, Psalms, and Media Fasting

Photo by Max van den Oetelaar on Unsplash

Anxiety is the ruling emotion of our modern age. This is particularly true in the United States. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 19% of adults in the United States qualified for an anxiety order within the past year. That is 63.6 million people. By any measure that is a significant number. And Christians are not exempt from experiencing symptoms of anxiety. We are human as well and the challenges we face are often the same as the ones those outside of our faith face. Yet within our faith and within Scripture we find that we are called to not be anxious. Paul tells us to cast our cares on the Lord and Jesus tells us not to be anxious because we can trust God will provide for us. That is much easier said than done but there are some steps we can take to help us address anxiety in our lives in a healthy, Biblical way. The three steps we are going to focus on are meditation, praying the Psalms, and disengaging from anxiety inducing media.

Meditation

Meditation often gets a bad rap in Christian circles. This is often because of its connection to Eastern religions. But we are frequently called to meditate on Scripture. The question then becomes how do we go about meditating in a Christ focused way. There are a few ways we can do this but we are going to focus on two: meditating on Scripture and utilizing the power of mindfulness. Meditating on Scripture is an ancient practice within the church. The easiest way to do this is to choose a small section of Scripture such as a Psalm, a parable, or a passage in your reading for the day and spending an extended period of time with it. You could begin by reading the passage several times and praying to the Holy Spirit to reveal to you what He has for you in the passage. You could move on to writing the passage down several times to begin implanting it within your memory. Then mark out several times throughout the day during which you can return to the passage to repeat this process. As we spend time with the Word in this way, it settles our hearts and spirits and allows the truth of the Bible to work its way into our hearts. This is also known as Lectio Divina. The Dwell Bible app has a great Lectio Divina practice built into it that is well worth a try. This is often a highly effective method of reducing anxiety symptoms.

The other Christian method of meditation is to harness the power of mindfulness in a Christian way. Mindfulness is simply the idea that we need to attend to the present moment, not the past or the future. In our current era, this is a very popular idea within the world of mental health and has been a part of many world religions for a long time. I would argue it is a Scriptural principle. We believe in a God who has forgiven our past and promised to take care of our future. If those portions of life are His prerogative, we are left to attend only to the present. Thus God leaves us to be mindful. Practicing mindfulness can take many forms but if you’re looking to get started, I’d suggest an app called Soulspace. It was designed and created by a former pastor and his wife. They give you a free daily meditation as well as some features you can choose to pay for. Each day, the meditation focuses on a prayer practice or Scriptural idea. Mindfulness meditation has decades of empirical research to support its use and the folks at Soulspace have combined it with Scripture to empower Christians. I’d highly recommend checking it out!

Praying the Psalms

​The Psalms are by far the largest book in the Bible but often they are the one we talk about the least. They are a repository of songs and poetry from a variety of Hebrew authors (mostly David but there are a bunch of others credited). One of the reasons I love the Psalms is that they encapsulate the entirety of the human experience. There are psalms that are filled with joy and psalms that are filled with the deepest sorry. There are psalms in which David breathes out the fiercest of threats against his enemies and others that display the tenderest love you can imagine. Regardless of how we may be feeling at any given time, there is likely a Psalm that will speak to the experience. One powerful way we can address anxiety is by using the Psalms as templates for prayer. Choosing a Psalm that speaks to our situation and reading through it as a way to lift our hearts before the King when we don’t know what to say ourselves. Psalm 23 would be a great place to start if you’re feeling anxious. It reminds us that we are not alone, that God cares for us like a shepherd cares for His sheep, that he is close beside us in the darkest moments of our lives, and that He is preparing a victory feast for us when he returns and calls us home. Taking a few moments to use those phrases as a prayer can powerfully alleviate our experience of anxiety as we remind ourselves that the God who sustains the universe is caring for us.

Media Fasting

The media is everyone’s punching bag these days. But it is a role that it has earned. Between the fear mongering we see in the news cycle, the echo chambers of social media, and the violence we see on TV, it is shocking that anyone in the US is able to live without anxiety. We are constantly faced with a literal firehose of information that is bombarding us at every single waking moment of our days. This is inherently anxiety inducing and inherently isolating. I encourage everyone I know, both personally and professionally, to take some time to evaluate their media consumption and use of social media. How much time are we investing in our favorite news source or social platform versus how much time we are investing in our relationships? Lent is rapidly approaching (in 2025, Lent begins on March 3). Perhaps it will provide an opportunity to fast from some of those intrusions. Perhaps a 40 day span in which we set aside TikTok and Snapchat and Fox News and CNN will allow us to see that we aren’t as anxious as we think. Setting aside anxiety inducing media will always be a good idea.

Anxiety truly is the ruling emotion of the early 21st Century. We have seen enormous increases in reported symptoms of anxiety in the last 10-15 years and will likely see this continue to increase moving forward. As Christians, we have pathways we can pursue that will lead away from anxiety and toward our God. As we seek Him through meditation, prayer, and fasting we will experience His peace.

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