A Biblical Example for Battling Anxious Thoughts

 King David was a man who knew the pains of anxiety well.

He was not unfamiliar with mental and emotional anguish, and in much of his story as well as his own writing we can see how those conditions really affected him.

In order to understand how he handled those emotions, it’s important to first understand the experiences he had to endure. This is where some backstory is highly necessary.

We know that David was a shepherd boy who had been given the task of tending to his family’s sheep. He was young when we first meet him in the Scriptures, and the Bible’s first real description of him is in this story of Samuel the prophet arriving at his father Jesse’s house and, ultimately, anointing David as the future king of Israel.

It’s important to remember that Israel already had a king. Saul had already taken the throne as the nation’s first ruler, and there was much that could be said about him and his leadership style – some positive, but mostly negative.

As time goes on, David finds himself matched up against a giant in a battle that he was not even originally supposed to be a part of. He slays that giant with a small stone, bringing victory to the nation of Israel, and he’s then celebrated as a hero among the people.

Things were going well for David – who had truly experienced a sudden rise to greatness. That is, until things stopped going well.

David was invited into the King’s court, to serve him and play music for him and learn from him. But it didn’t take long for Saul’s acceptance of David to turn into jealousy, as he noticed how revered and loved David was among the other Israelites. This jealousy quickly turned into rage, and on many occasions, Saul actually tried taking David’s life.

After a while, David found himself on the run from Saul – hiding in caves and staying away from the area in order to preserve his life. We can only image the anxiety and tension that David felt as he lived life on the run, wondering why his king (who was also his father-in-law, and the father of his best friend) wanted him dead.

Eventually the hunt for David came to an end. After many close encounters and many years of self-preservation, the tension of his father-in-law and leader wanting him dead was finally no more. The death of Saul, while tragic, brought a sort of peace of mind for David. He was free to be the king that God had appointed him to be.

The reality, though, is that with the kingship came more troubles. Battles, uprisings, pursuits, mortal enemies, his own sinful choices, drama within the kingdom and even within the family – all of these things undoubtedly created stress for David and led him to the point of near-brokenness. This surely explains why so many of his psalms sound so desperate and full of despair. From those places of darkness and sadness and grief and frustration, David wrote impassioned pleas to God for deliverance and mercy. Psalm 88 is one of the greatest examples of this:

O LORD, God of my salvation, I cry out day and night before you. Let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry! For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol. I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am a man who has no strength, like one set loose among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those who you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand.”

In these words, you can almost sense the pain and anguish that David was experiencing. He was no stranger to emotional and spiritual brokenness, and it is not a stretch to imagine that his mind and heart were consumed with the troubles that he had endured. And this, again, is what anxiety is all about – a constant rumination and contemplation that causes vexation. It’s safe to say that David’s heart and mind were “vexed.” He could not help but dwell on and ruminate on the hardships and pain of his life. And when he did, it greatly impacted the attitude of his heart, which then came out in his words and behaviors – pleading for mercy and crying out to God.

From the experiences and emotions of King David we can see what circumstances have the power to do to a person. Difficult life situations have the power to take a heart that is quite content and at ease and turn it completely upside down, causing such an intense disruption that it feels like something else is becoming the ruler of one’s thoughts and emotions.

If it can happen to a man who the Bible would describe as “a man after God’s own heart,” a man who had been appointed by God Himself to lead Israel, a man who had given his life to follow God’s calling and plan, then it’s not surprising that it can also happen to us. And when it does, the question becomes, “How do we respond to it?”

How do we handle – from a godly and biblical perspective – the type of anxiety and mental and emotional anguish that arises from our difficult life circumstances? When we are feeling beat down, when we feel defeated and crushed, when we can’t seem to overcome the struggle, when our difficulties are all we can think about, when our minds and hearts are consumed with pain and suffering and uncertainty and fear, what are we supposed to do?

The answer lies in another of David’s psalms, one that powerfully displays the heart of a man who understood the need to switch his thinking even though his problems had not gone away.

Look at the words of this same man in Psalm 23:

“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” (Psalm 23:1-4 ESV)

There were times when David dwelled and meditated on the pain and suffering he was experiencing. And this meditation flowed out of him into his words, his reactions, and his behaviors. And then there were times when, even though the pain and problems continued, he chose to dwell instead on things that fostered hope and encouragement rather than despair. Things like the power and presence of God; things like mercy and comfort and restoration; things that were true and based on the unchangeable attributes of the God in whom he trusted.

This is what we learn from this: EVEN THOUGH the pain and problems don’t disappear; EVEN IF we don’t get totally delivered from them; EVEN WHEN the struggles persist, we can choose to dwell and meditate on things that lead us to peace rather than things that lead us to more suffering and distress.

If anxiety comes from what we ruminate on, then what if we chose instead to ruminate on hope-inducing truths rather than fear-inducing problems?

When we read the words of Psalm 23, do we see a man who is anxious and struggling with the problems of life?

We want to say, “No. He’s confident in God. He seems fine.”

But what if we looked more closely? When we really examine his words and try to imagine his tone, can we get the image of a man who, in his anxiety and distress, cried out to God out of a desire to replace his fearful and anxious thoughts with thoughts that would bring comfort and peace?

He writes, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” The shadow of death was still real. He was still walking through it. His problems had not vanished. And I think David was well aware of how easy it was to let his mind and heart become consumed with those problems to the point of causing him distress. So, he presents a contrast. “EVEN THOUGH there is distress, I won’t be afraid. I will choose not to be afraid. I will surrender this fear and will instead remember that God is with me, that He is able to comfort me.” And I think this took some effort on David’s part; some effort to be convinced that God’s presence had the power to overcome any fear he felt as a result of his problems.

Fear was being replaced with trust. Anxious thoughts were being replaced with truth about God’s power and presence. And in making the choice to dwell on these things, David was walking away from anxiety and towards the peace that God wanted for him, even if the stressors of his life didn’t completely go away.

Herein is our deliverance: that even though the problems don’t always go away, the anxiety about them can. Our constant fearful rumination, worry, fixation on our stressors, and emotional distress can begin to fade way as we actively replace those thoughts, beliefs, and fears with meditation on truth.

Again, it’s a work of the mind and the heart, and it’s a work that God wants to do within us in order to lead us to the peace that He wants for us.

In Romans 12:2 Paul says that we should “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” There is something powerful about the mind. It has the ability to influence the direction of our words, our reactions, and our behaviors.

If we want freedom from the anxiety and mental anguish that we wrestle so often with, we need to look at our minds. What are we choosing to focus on? What thoughts, beliefs, or assumptions are we meditating on? What replacement work can we do in our heads that will hopefully lead to a change in our hearts?

What if we cling to and even begin repeating to ourselves words like David’s at the end of Psalm 23: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”

“I am going to be okay.”

“The Lord is with me in this.”

“God’s goodness is real and it is always upon me.”

“One day this will all be over and I will live with God forever.”

Let those truths be what your heart and mind meditate on, as you move forward through your darkest and toughest struggles. Let those thoughts, based on God’s unchangeable truth, be what influences your emotions, reactions, and behaviors. Let them become mantras that guide you through each day. And see what kind of difference that makes in your daily life.