Anxiety about money

The number is in your head again. The one in the account, or the one on the letter, or the one you have not dared to add up. It sits on your chest in the morning before you have opened your eyes. You have done the sums four different ways and they still come out the same. And underneath the sums is something older and heavier: the fear that no one is coming, that you are on your own with this.

This page will not tell you what to do with your money. There is no budget here, no plan, nothing to sign up for. There is only what Jesus and His apostles said to people who were afraid about exactly this, and it comes down to one thing said several ways. Your heavenly Father knows that you need these things. You are not on your own with it. You never were.

The fear under the fear

Money anxiety is rarely about money. It is about what money stands for: a roof, food on the table, not letting your children down, not being ashamed in front of people, not ending up alone. That is why it does not go away when the number improves slightly. The fear is not really about the number. It is about whether you are held.

Jesus goes straight to that fear. He does not talk about the money. He talks about the Father.

Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles strive after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.

Matthew 6:31–33

Read who He is speaking to. Not the comfortable. People who did not know what they would eat tomorrow. And He does not say their worry is foolish. He says that the people who strive like this are people who do not have a Father, and you do. He knows that you need them. Not want. Need. The Father is not embarrassed by your need for rent money. He made you to need food and shelter, and He knows the bill is due.

Paul wrote about contentment from a prison cell

The apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians from a prison cell, dependent on gifts from friends for basic things. He was not writing about contentment from a comfortable chair.

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6–7

In everything. That includes the thing you are ashamed to pray about because it seems too small or too worldly for God. Present the request. Paul says the result is not that the request is always answered the way you asked, but that a peace beyond understanding stands guard over your heart and mind while you wait. A guard. Something posted at the door of your thoughts, so the fear cannot walk in and out all night.

A few lines later he says the thing that is easy to misquote and worth reading whole.

I am not saying this out of need, for I have learned to be content regardless of my circumstances. I know how to live humbly, and I know how to abound. In any and every situation I have learned the secret of being filled and being hungry, of having plenty and having need. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

Philippians 4:11–13

The last line, about doing all things through Christ, is not a slogan for winning. Read what comes before it. It is a man saying he has been hungry and he has been full, he has had plenty and he has had nothing, and he has learned in both to be held by Christ. That is what he means by all things: hunger too. The strength is for the lean season as much as the fat one.

An old man looked back

There is a line in Psalm 37 written by a man near the end of his life, looking back over everything he had seen.

I once was young and now am old, yet never have I seen the righteous abandoned or their children begging for bread.

Psalm 37:25

He is not promising that believers are never poor. Scripture is full of poor believers, and Jesus Himself had nowhere to lay His head. He is saying something quieter and more solid: that over a long life he never saw the Father abandon His own. The way was often hard. It was never forsaken.

The writer of Hebrews puts the same thing as a command with a promise wrapped inside it.

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, for God has said: “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.” So we say with confidence: “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”

Hebrews 13:5–6

That promise never to leave, first spoken to Joshua as he faced a war, is here applied to people worried about money, and the writer draws the conclusion for you: so we can say with confidence that the Lord is our helper and we will not be afraid. Not because the account is full. Because He is not going anywhere.

What counts as enough

Paul wrote to Timothy about what is actually enough, and it is a shorter list than the one the fear makes.

Of course, godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, so we cannot carry anything out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.

1 Timothy 6:6–8

Food and clothing. That is not a rule for how little you should own. It is a floor under your feet. If you have eaten today and you have something to wear, the fear has been lying to you about how bad things are. The fear always adds to the list. The Father’s list is shorter, and He keeps it.

Pray with the actual list

Here is the practical part, and it is the only practical thing on this page. Get a piece of paper. Write down the specific things, with numbers, that you are afraid about. The rent. The car. The school fees. The card. The thing you have been putting off opening. Be exact, because vague fears cannot be handed over; they just float.

Then read the list to the Father, one line at a time, out loud if you can, and after each line say: You know I need this. That is what Jesus told you to say. It is not a magic phrase. It is a child telling a father what is wrong, which is the thing children are meant to do.

Keep the paper. When something on it is met, however it is met, write the date next to it. You will need that paper the next time the fear says no one is coming.

Ask your church, and do not be ashamed

One more thing, and it is hard to say and harder to do. If you are in real need, tell your church. Tell the pastor, or an elder, or the deacons, or whoever it is in your congregation who looks after people in trouble. This is not begging and it is not failure. It is what the church has done since the first weeks after Pentecost, when believers sold what they had so that no one among them went without. The Father feeds His children, and one of His main ways of doing it is other children. Letting them is not weakness. It is letting the body of Christ be the body.

If you have no church, this is a good week to find one, and to be honest with someone there early rather than late.

If the fear has gone somewhere darker, if you are thinking that the people you love would be better off without you, please stop and call a crisis line or your local emergency number right now. This site has a Help now page with real numbers for where you are. No debt is worth your life, and the Father who counts sparrows has counted you. There is a page written for that night too.

Look up when the number comes back

Read Matthew 6:25 to 34 tonight, slowly, and then read it again in the morning. Say the sentence Jesus gave you: my Father knows I need this. Tell one person at church what you are carrying. And when the number comes back into your head, let it be the cue to look up, the way a child in a hard room looks for the parent.

He knows. He has not left. He is not going to.