End of the year means year in review. Spotify Wrapped will soon be making the rounds, and we’ve all seen the lists of top shows and top news stories. But like everything else, we got an early start this year, and we already know the word of the year: maxxing.
Maxxing is doing something to the fullest extent. Looksmaxxing, sleepmaxxing, proteinmaxxing, collagenmaxxing, cozymaxxing. And then there’s one we’re not proud of, but it describes a lot of us: worrymaxxing.
A May 2026 study from the American Psychiatric Association found that 48% of US adults are more anxious than they were the year before. We feel it in different ways. Matt Haig captured it in his book Notes on a Nervous Planet:
“I sometimes feel like my head is a computer with too many windows open.”
The worry becomes stress, and the stress becomes anxiety, often before we even know what we’re worrying about. So when life is uncertain and peace feels impossible, what do you do?
Here’s the case I want to make: with a change in perspective, peace is possible before you know how things are going to turn out.
You’re Not Alone in This
This is the first post in a four-part series on how our faith interacts with our thoughts, feelings, and emotions. If you follow Jesus, I hope these posts encourage your soul. Your struggles aren’t a lack of faith, and God promises to be with you when life is hard. If you’re exploring faith, I hope they push you to look deeper at what it means to follow Jesus. A life of faith isn’t having it all together. It’s a promise that when life is falling apart, you don’t have to face it alone.
We’re starting in Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi. Paul was a first century missionary, church planter, and pastor, and what he writes here reminds us that our struggle isn’t unique, and that there is real hope for those who trust Jesus.
“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me, everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.” (Philippians 4:6-9, NLT)
“Don’t Worry” Is Hard to Hear
Paul clearly has skin in the game. He isn’t writing from ignorance or some unreachable level of holiness. He knows what it’s like to care deeply about something and to hope and pray for its success. Every one of his letters to the churches, Romans, Corinthians, Thessalonians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, was written because he was concerned and wanted to help those people succeed.
So at face value, this can sound hypocritical or unreasonable:
“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.” (Philippians 4:6a, NLT)
That’s hard to hear, because your worry comes from a place of care. You worry about your kids, your family, your job, your community. It’s natural. A direct command like “don’t worry” can feel jarring.
Yes, we care. Yes, we’re concerned. But worry doesn’t help. Worry is rehearsing a future where God doesn’t come through. It assumes the worst and lets the worst case scenario play out as if it were true. It puts all the focus on what we can do.
That’s why Paul points us somewhere else. We reorient our minds and let our faith shape how we live, even when life is hard. And the way he says to do it is to pray about everything.
Consider the Source
When I get advice, I like to check the source. That’s because I remember Todd Davis. Maybe you do too. Todd was the founder and CEO of LifeLock, a company that protected people from identity theft. He was so confident in his product that in 2007 he put his Social Security number in ads for the whole world to see. Great way to show how good your service is, except his identity was then stolen 13 times. It makes you wonder if that’s the company you want protecting yours.
The person behind the advice matters.
So consider who is giving this advice. Paul isn’t lounging in a five-star hotel while he writes. By his own words, he’s “in chains because of Christ.” He’s writing from prison, where release was never guaranteed. And it’s from there that he tells us not to worry.
He doesn’t leave us at “don’t worry,” either. He gives us an alternative: pray about everything. The mortgage. The car repair. Your health. Your relationships. Every worry is a chance to remember that you have a God who listens.
Prayer Replaces Control with Trust
The point of prayer isn’t to control the outcome. It’s to acknowledge that the outcome is beyond our control. Tyler Staton says it even more directly in Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools: “Prayer replaces control with trust.”
And the promised payoff of choosing prayer over worry isn’t that things will go well for you. It’s something bigger:
“Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.” (Philippians 4:6b-7a, NLT)
Prayer is the pathway to peace.
To get the full weight of that, we have to step back into first century culture. The word Paul uses for peace carries the idea of the Hebrew word shalom, which is much deeper and richer than what usually crosses our minds. Theologian Roger Hahn describes the Jewish idea of peace as “total well-being rather than absence of conflict.”
When you choose to pray instead of worrying, your circumstances may not change, but your heart will. The point of prayer isn’t to get what you want. It’s to open your heart to who God is. And no matter how small or insignificant it seems, you’re invited to tell God what you need.
A Peace That Stands Guard
Paul adds even more hope:
“His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7b, NLT)
Remember where Paul is. He’s under guard, imprisoned. And the people of Philippi understood the importance of soldiers guarding a city. Everywhere the Roman Army went, they brought the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome. The empire had built an entire system around providing security and maintaining that peace.
Paul uses that same kind of language to describe the peace God gives. It will guard your hearts and minds. Think about that. The very places where worry creeps in are the places where God stands guard.
Sometimes you can explain why you feel peaceful. The situation worked out, the test results came back clear, the problem finally got resolved. But Paul is describing a peace you can experience while questions remain. You still have concerns about tomorrow, and yet you have a growing confidence in the God who is with you, standing guard.
Strength in the face of adversity. Hope in the midst of trials. Peace when chaos is swirling around you. That’s the inner life we’re all looking for. So how do we find it?
It Begins with How You Think
“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” (Philippians 4:8, NLT)
There’s a lot to say about each of these eight things, but let’s zoom out and see what Paul is getting at. Each one points to the person and character of Jesus, or at least to those who live like him. Pieces of this list show up in Greek morality and Jewish wisdom teaching, and together they form a Christian ethic for living. Finding peace is closely tied to the way we think.
So how do we actually fix our thoughts on these things? Dallas Willard offers this advice. We constantly redirect our minds to God, and through repetition:
“Soon our minds will return to God as the needle of a compass constantly returns to true north... If God is the great longing of our souls, He will become the polestar of our inward beings.”
This isn’t thinking for the sake of thinking. It’s thinking that turns our hearts and minds toward heaven. And here’s how Paul wraps it up:
“Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me, everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.” (Philippians 4:9, NLT)
If I had to boil it all down, I’d put it this way: the antidote to worry is looking beyond yourself.
When Tomorrow Feels Uncertain
When your tomorrow feels uncertain, you can look back to the cross and the empty tomb. Jesus gave his life for our sins and rose again, opening the way for us to come to God with confidence.
And as we bring him everything weighing on us, we learn every single time that peace is possible before we know how things are going to turn out.
