The Point: Worry Management Doesn't Work, Prayer Does

INC.com's Jeff Steen has a new technique for anxiety management: schedule time to worry. Setting aside time to consider what worries us, he writes, clarifies our fears.

It reminds us of what's important, what we can do about it, and (most importantly) what we can't. It's something he's encouraged business leaders to do for years, and it's seen results.

There's a biblical term for Steen's technique: prayer. If that sounds cliché, it might be because we've lost one of the main things prayer is meant to be.

"Cast all your anxiety on him," writes the Apostle Peter, "because he cares for you."

The Psalmist also puts it beautifully:

For God alone my soul waits in silence;

from him comes my salvation.

He alone is my rock and my salvation,

my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken.

We aren't meant to muscle through our anxieties, but to bring them to God. That's important – because as good as Steen's advice is, it's still only self-help, a speaking into the void. Christians have something just as good and even better. We have Someone listening on the other end.