It is often the kitchen table, late, with the banking app open and sums that will not come out. One person posted on Reddit's r/TrueChristian, "I work and my paychecks are never enough to pay off everything". On Reddit's r/Prayer, someone wrote, "I am completely overwhelmed and panicking about my family’s business finances." and later, "Anxiety consumes me. I’m just so tired and scared." Below: an invitation to the tired, people in Scripture who were in debt, prayers for daily bread, and free debt services by country.
If you only have a minute
Read tonight
Matthew 11:28-30, an invitation to anyone who labors and is heavily burdened.
At the table
Phone face down, read verse 28, and answer in one line: what burden are you trying to carry alone?
Pray over one bill
"Give us today our daily bread."
Matthew 11:28-30, for tonight at the table
The passage Bible Nudge offers for anxiety comes straight after a prayer:
25 At that time, Jesus answered, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you hid these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to infants. 26 Yes, Father, for so it was well-pleasing in your sight. 27 All things have been delivered to me by my Father. No one knows the Son, except the Father; neither does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and he to whom the Son desires to reveal him.
Then he turns to his hearers:
28 Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Jesus speaks to people carrying heavy burdens and names himself gentle and humble. The invitation is to whoever labors and is heavily burdened, at a kitchen table at midnight too, to bring the weight to him. Anxiety and overthinking reads it closely.
Set the phone face down. Read verse 28 once, then answer in one line: what burden are you trying to carry alone? If the honest answer is a number, writing the number is fair.
One minute first.
A widow who said the word "creditor"
In 2 Kings 4, the widow of one of the "sons of the prophets" cries out to Elisha, "Your servant my husband is dead. You know that your servant feared Yahweh. Now the creditor has come to take for himself my two children to be slaves." Elisha asks, "what do you have in the house?" She has "nothing in the house, except a pot of oil." She fills borrowed containers until none are left, and Elisha says, "Go, sell the oil, and pay your debt; and you and your sons live on the rest."
Radak, the Jewish commentator, names her husband as Obadiah by tradition; Matthew Henry notes "That the creditors were very severe with her." It is her story, ending with her debt paid. What it gives you: a woman in debt says "creditor" out loud to somebody who could help, and is heard.
Borrowed jars.
What the Law said to lenders
If you are ashamed of what you owe, the Law of Moses speaks to the lender. Exodus 22:26-27 says a garment taken as collateral goes back "before the sun goes down," and God says of the borrower, "I will hear, for I am gracious." Deuteronomy 15 commands a release every seventh year and tells the lender "to surely open your hand to your brother, to your needy, and to your poor." Jeffrey Tigay's JPS commentary notes debate over whether the release canceled debts or paused collection.
In Nehemiah 5, famine-struck people cry, "We are mortgaging our fields, and our vineyards, and our houses." Nehemiah, "very angry when I heard their cry," had the fields restored. In each passage, the people in debt are the ones whose cry is heard.
Give us today our daily bread
The Lord's Prayer in Matthew has two lines for this: "Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." Luke has "sins" where Matthew has "debts". The Catholic Catechism (2837) reads "daily" as "this day" and as "what is necessary for life". What the Bible says about anxiety reads more of Matthew 6.
Behind the prayer is Exodus 16, where Israel gathers manna "morning by morning," and "he who gathered little had no lack." The site's suggestion: name the one bill due this week and pray "Give us today our daily bread" over it.
Enough for today.
A prayer for enough
Agur son of Jakeh prays to God in Proverbs 30:8, "Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food that is needful for me." Psalm 40, headed as David's, is shorter: "But I am poor and needy. May the Lord think about me."
Two verses people quote about debt
Proverbs 22:7, "The borrower is servant to the lender," is a saying about how things are. Romans 13:8, "Owe no one anything, except to love one another," follows Paul's paragraph on taxes and customs. John Chrysostom reads it as naming love as a debt where "one keeps giving and owing always." John Calvin reads it as tying the duty to rulers back to the law of love. They differ, and the difference can stand.
If your church teaches that givers prosper
One person wrote on Reddit's r/Christianity, "They give a mini sermon every Sunday about the blessings that will rain down from the Frist Bank of God if we trust God and tithe." Malachi 3:10, "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse... and test me now in this," is spoken to the nation (3:8-12). 3 John 2, "I pray that you may prosper in all things and be healthy," is the Elder's greeting to Gaius. Luke 6:38, "Give, and it will be given to you," follows sayings on judging and forgiving.
In 2017, Kenneth Copeland Ministries called Luke 6:38 and Malachi 3:10 "a promise in God’s Word." In 2010, the evangelical Lausanne Theology Working Group called the prosperity gospel, as its most vigorous promoters teach it, "false and gravely distorting of the Bible." Kate Bowler's Blessed (2013) is a history of the movement. Both are here to weigh.
When you cannot give what you used to
The same Reddit poster wrote, "I've always enjoyed giving to the church, but the 10 percent tithe just is not in the cards right now." The Orthodox Church in America says, "If we are of limited material means, we should still give something," naming time and talents too. The Catholic Catechism (2448) calls the poor "the object of a preferential love on the part of the Church." The Central Conference of American Rabbis gives Maimonides' highest charity as helping a poor person "to the point that he no longer needs tzedakah."
In Mark 12, Jesus says a poor widow with two small coins "gave more than all those who are giving." Paul, on a collection for the saints, says a gift "is acceptable according to what you have, not according to what you don’t have" (2 Corinthians 8:12).
When asking for help feels worse than the debt
In that r/TrueChristian thread on Reddit, a commenter wrote, "I have asked over 5 churches for financial aid, 3 ignored me, the other 2 said “we don’t do that”." A 2023 report on UK food banks from the Scottish Centre for Social Research records "feelings of failure, embarrassment, shame," and a participant in Wales: "You feel like an absolute failure."
In Acts 4, "neither was there among them any who lacked." In Acts 6, when widows "were neglected in the daily service," seven people were chosen to see to it. Asking a church for help is asking for what the church has done from the start.
What money worry does to a mind
A 2013 review of 65 studies linked unsecured debt with mental health problems, as an association. Mani and colleagues, studying New Jersey shoppers and Indian sugarcane farmers, wrote that "poverty-related concerns consume mental resources, leaving less for other tasks"; later studies debate how general that is. If you cannot think straight tonight, that fog comes with the weight.
When it weighs on your health
The NHS says, "Feeling low or anxious is a normal response when you've lost your job, been made redundant, or you're struggling with debt," and "Get help immediately if you cannot cope, if life is becoming very difficult or if you feel it is not worth living." Call or text 988 in the United States or 9-8-8 in Canada; Samaritans is on 116 123 in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia. Elsewhere, Find A Helpline lists lines by country.
Free debt services: StepChange and National Debtline in the UK; the Money Advice and Budgeting Service (MABS) in Ireland; the National Debt Helpline on 1800 007 007 in Australia; MoneyTalks on 0800 345 123 in New Zealand; the National Foundation for Credit Counseling in the United States; Credit Counselling Canada; and Christians Against Poverty where it operates. Each sets its own terms.
If you are writing to a friend
The site's suggestion: send Proverbs 30:8 with a line of your own and an offer they can keep, a meal on Thursday or a bag of shopping. If it began with lost work, Bible verses for losing a job reads Philippians 4:19 and Psalm 37:25.
Questions people ask
What did the Law say about interest on a loan to the poor? Exodus 22:25 says, "You shall not charge him interest," and Leviticus 25:36, "Take no interest from him or profit."
Who is hit hardest? Trussell's Hunger in the UK (2023) found disabled people, single adults and families with children overrepresented at its food banks.
Where to go next
If money worry has brought thoughts of ending your life, please reach a person tonight: 988 in the United States, 9-8-8 in Canada, Samaritans on 116 123 in the United Kingdom and Ireland, Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia, and Find A Helpline anywhere else. The free debt services are above.
Tonight, before bed, read Matthew 11:28-30 with the verses around it once at the table. For anything else on your mind, Bible Nudge can suggest a passage. Find a passage.
Words that come up here
Tap a term to see what it means.
Yahweh. The personal name of God in the Hebrew Bible, printed where many translations have "the LORD".