It is the middle of an ordinary day, the phone is in your hand, and the reply has not come yet. One woman wrote on Reddit's r/TrueChristian, "My husband has diabetes.He's having a lot of problems.Of course I love him.How can I keep from worrying." A grandmother wrote in the same Reddit thread, "I worry for my granddaughter who joined the Air Force is it my fault????" And on Reddit's r/nri, somebody else put it simply: "My elderly parents live far away from me, and I often worry about them."
This is worry with a name and a face: a son who has gone quiet, a daughter abroad, a husband's scan. The passage Bible Nudge offers for anxiety, Matthew 11:28-30, is below, with something to do with it today. If your worry is about your own health, the future in general or money, the posts on health anxiety, fear of the future and financial hardship start there instead.
If you only have a minute
Read today
Matthew 11:28, once, between one check of the phone and the next.
Answer
"What burden are you trying to carry alone?" with the person's name.
If someone is in danger
Call your local emergency number, or a crisis line for your country.
An invitation for a burden that is a person
Just after thanking the Father for showing things to "infants," Jesus turns to people carrying heavy burdens and names himself gentle and humble:
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.
The invitation names the heavy burden without asking what it is. A mother carrying her son's silence is among "all you who labor and are heavily burdened." Bible verses for anxiety and overthinking reads the same passage for the mind that loops at night; here it is for the daytime.
Something to do with it: read verse 28 once, between one check of the phone and the next. Then answer this site's question, "What burden are you trying to carry alone?", with the person's name. You can read Matthew 11:28-30 with the verses around it.
Made to share a load between two.
What worry is, and who it is usually for
In two questionnaire studies published in Behaviour Research and Therapy in 1983, Thomas Borkovec and colleagues described worry in their samples as including "concerns over future rather than past or present situations." People who called themselves worriers differed most in the "uncontrollability of cognitive intrusions once worrying was initiated."
Worry for family runs both ways. In a 2008 US study, Hay, Fingerman and Lefkowitz found adult children's worries centered on their aging parents' health, while parents worried about grown children's health, safety, relationships and money. A US daily-diary study of middle-aged adults by Leger and colleagues (2019) reports that parents and adult children "commonly worry about each other." The worry you carry for a son or a mother is one of the ordinary things families carry for each other.
Worried parents in Scripture
When Jacob is asked to send his youngest son Benjamin to Egypt, after losing Joseph, he says in Genesis 42:38, "My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he only is left." Then the famine leaves no choice, and in 43:14 he lets him go with a prayer: "May God Almighty give you mercy before the man... If I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved." Matthew Henry, the Protestant commentator, describes Jacob "yielding to necessity."
In Exodus 2:1-4 a mother hides her baby for three months, then lays him in a basket in the reeds, and "His sister stood far off, to see what would be done to him."
In Luke 2:41-48 Mary and Joseph search three days for the twelve-year-old Jesus. When they find him, Mary says, "Son, why have you treated us this way? Behold, your father and I were anxiously looking for you." The King James Version has "sought thee sorrowing," and Blue Letter Bible's lexicon gives the Greek verb, odynaō, as "to be in anguish."
A father letting his son go with a prayer for mercy, a sister watching from a distance, parents searching in anguish: each is kept in Scripture as they were.
Paul could not settle until news came
At Troas, with a door open to preach, Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 2:13, "I had no relief for my spirit, because I didn’t find Titus, my brother," so he left for Macedonia. Of the church at Thessalonica he writes, "when I couldn’t stand it any longer," he sent Timothy (1 Thessalonians 3:5). When Timothy came back with glad news of their faith and love, "we were comforted over you," and he goes on "night and day praying exceedingly" to see them.
If you are waiting for a text, here is an apostle who could not rest for want of news, and did two things with it: he sent somebody, and he prayed. Bible verses for stress reads his daily care for the churches in 2 Corinthians 11:28.
Is worrying about someone you love a sin?
Some people have been told it is. Replying to that claim on Reddit's r/TrueChristian, the grandmother quoted above wrote, "Now how can't I not worry???? About my children????"
The traditions speak about care for others in different ways. The Westminster Larger Catechism, Reformed, says the sixth commandment requires "all careful studies, and lawful endeavours, to preserve the life of ourselves and others" (Q. 135). The Catholic Encyclopedia's article "Solicitude" distinguishes right concern from a solicitude for temporal things that displaces God. Fr Thomas Hopko, of the Orthodox Church in America, calls faith "the assurance that God is with us and cares for us." John Piper, a Reformed Baptist writer, argues in "Anxiety: Sin, Weakness, or Both?" that anxiety can be sin and can also be suffering and weakness. They differ, and the Westminster line gives you something plain: care for another person's life, named as a duty. Is anxiety a sin? takes the wider question.
The same word covers worry and care
In Mark 4:19, in Jesus' explanation of the sower, the seed among thorns is choked by "the cares of this age, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things." BibleRef reads it within that grouping of cares with wealth and other desires. In 1 Corinthians 7:33 Paul says the married man "is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife," and Enduring Word reads it as Paul recognizing a married person's family responsibilities. Blue Letter Bible gives the Greek verb, merimnaō, as "to be anxious about, to care for." One word covers both, and Paul uses it for a husband and wife looking after each other. What the Bible says about anxiety reads the word in Matthew 6.
Somewhere for the worry to go during the day
Psalm 55:17 is a psalmist praying at three points of an ordinary day: "Evening, morning, and at noon, I will cry out in distress. He will hear my voice." A few verses on comes "Cast your burden on Yahweh, and he will sustain you." Bible Hub's lexicon gives the Hebrew word for "burden," yehab, as "that which is given." A burden that was given can be handed on at morning, noon and evening, and yours may be a person. Short Bible verses for anxiety keeps 55:22 as a line to carry.
The traditions keep prayers you can say with a name in them. The USCCB's "Prayer for Children" begins, "Lord Jesus, watch over my children and keep them safe. Help them to grow in wisdom and grace." For a teenager who has just driven off, or a daughter flying tonight, there is the Jewish traveler's prayer, Tefilat HaDerech, as Sefaria gives it: "May it be Your will, Lord our God and God of our ancestors, that You lead us toward peace, and guide our steps toward peace, and direct us toward peace." One parent answered another on Reddit's r/TrueChristian, "I have young children as well, I just pray with them, for them".
For the one who has just driven off.
The NHS's Every Mind Matters describes "worry time," "a short period, say 10 or 15 minutes, every day or so," to "write things down and try to find solutions," telling yourself "I’ll set that aside for my worry time." You could end it with Matthew 11:28 and the person's name. Its "worry tree" separates "problems you can solve and hypothetical worries that are beyond your control." When the worry is something that can be done, a call, a visit, a lift to an appointment, the tree points to doing it today.
When the worry means somebody needs help now
The 988 Lifeline says, "Never keep it a secret if a friend tells you about a plan to hurt themselves. Contact 988 so that you can find out what resources are available in your area," and "Contact 988 at any time for help if a friend is struggling." In the United States, call or text 988. In Canada, call or text 9-8-8. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, Samaritans says anybody worried about someone else can call them on 116 123. In Australia, Lifeline is 13 11 14. Anywhere else, Find A Helpline lists services by country. For any other danger, a child at risk or somebody being hurt, call the emergency number where they are.
When the worry itself needs a doctor
NHS Inform describes generalized anxiety disorder as "a long-term condition" causing anxiety "about a wide range of issues, rather than 1 specific event," felt "most days," and says, "See your GP if you’re finding it difficult to cope with anxiety, fear or panic." A GP is a family doctor in the UK; if you live elsewhere, see your own doctor.
Where to go next
Today, read Matthew 11:28 once with the person's name in mind. Or describe what you are carrying in your own words, and Bible Nudge can suggest a single passage. Find a passage.
Words that come up here
Tap a term to see what it means.
Yoke. A wooden frame joining two animals to pull a load together; Jesus uses it for learning from him.