How Gratitude Can Remedy Your Anxiety

For several years in my young adulthood, I lived as a slave to a secret eating disorder. My food dysfunctions and the lengths I took to hide them completely ruled me. My anxiety surrounding my big secret was crushing. See, I wasn’t just a person. I wasn’t just a Christian. I was a church secretary. I was a young pastor’s wife. I was a Bible college student. I was all these very super-Christian-y things, and I was certain that if I came clean about my sins, I’d lose everything.

So I fought in secret. I prayed and cried and quietly begged God for healing. My prayers didn’t seem to go far though, and it was because my heart was full of pride. I was unwilling to be obedient to the Spirit’s leading. My sin was the king in my life, and as much as I wanted to worship the real King, I felt like my fears kept me stuck. God kept bringing me to Proverbs 28:13— “The one who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.”

But I was too afraid. I was afraid that if I obeyed, if I confessed, I would lose everything. I thought I’d destroy my reputation. I thought my husband would leave me. I thought my family would be disgusted and disown me.

My worries kept me stuck in sinful patterns for three-and-a-half years. But when I finally confessed my sin to others, God took my one, weak moment of obedience, and He healed me. My desire to be dysfunctional with food evaporated, and I never struggled with it again. It was maybe the most miraculous thing I’ve ever experienced.

The disclaimer I always give when I tell this story is that there are things I've been praying for my entire life that are still unresolved. I know God doesn't always give miraculous overnight healing, but sometimes He does. Jonah and I have that in common. God is capable of orchestrating major, miraculous deliveries.

Do you have a story like mine? A time you hit rock bottom/the end of yourself and felt stuck in something you couldn’t get out of? Did you run to the Lord for help or run from Him?

Commentator James Montgomery Boice said the following about this point in Jonah’s story:

To concentrate so much on what happened inside the great fish that we miss noting what happened inside Jonah is to make a great mistake … So we must now turn to Jonah’s prayer to God from inside the monster. As we read it we discover that the prayer reveals the truly great miracle. It shows that though Jonah had been brought to the depths of misery within the fish, he nevertheless found the mercy of God in his misery. He discovered that though he had forsaken God, God had not forsaken him, though it seemed that he had. In brief, Jonah found salvation even before the fish vomited him up on the land.1

Chills, right?

A human heart receiving God’s mercy is a miracle.

Jonah didn’t pray magic words that bought him a second chance. His heart shifted. His fear stopped ruling his actions, and he spoke to God with humility and desperation. That’s a miracle.

Until studying Jonah 2, I never realized that Jonah’s recorded prayer is referencing an earlier prayer. From the belly of the big fish, in verse 2a, he said, “I called out to the LORD, out of my distress, and he answered me …” (ESV) referring to whatever prayer of desperation he prayed when he was thrown overboard, facing death.

Here’s what’s cool to me. There’s no way that in that moment, as he was flung from the boat into the storm, Jonah said a thoughtfully worded and perfectly crafted petition to the God who was in control of the storm. I wonder if his prayer was a simple “AHHHHHHHHH!” or “Heeeeeeeelp meeeee!” or “GOOOOOOOOOOOOD!”

In some of my lowest moments, my prayers were less about words and more about desperation. One of the countless beautiful mysteries about the Holy Spirit is that when He lives in you, He intercedes for you. He helps you pray when you don’t know what to say.

Whether you are alone on your couch right now or being flung over the railing of a storm-shaken ship, you have an incredible King in the fight against anxiety. You have a King who prays for you even as He promises you He’ll make sure you win.

Looking back at Jonah 2, specifically verse 9, what do we see as part of Jonah’s prayer here?

I’m going to tell you the answer. It’s gratitude. I’ve heard it said that thanksgiving is the remedy to anxiety. It’s hard to be scared when you know why you’re grateful. Remember the miracle of God’s mercy and surrender your worry.

Excerpted from Anxious: Fighting Anxiety with the Word of God © 2021 Scarlet Hiltibidal. Published by Lifeway Press®.

1. James Montgomery Boice, About The Minor Prophets (Hosea–Jonah): An Expositional Commentary, Vol. I (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2002).