"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life?
"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day. Matthew 6:25–27, 34 (RSV
Anyone who has experienced a panic attack will attest that anxiety is real. The unreasoning fear, terror in a panic attack can be so overwhelming that one can despair of life. True, most persons know anxiety as a passing thing, a disruption in the flow of the day. However it comes, anxiety touches nearly everyone at one time or another.
Jesus is not chastising us that we have anxiety. Anxiety is symptomatic of our much deeper disease, the inherited illness of sin. As sin gnaws away at our humanity, it manifests itself in our lives. Anxiety is one of its signs which attacks our spirit.
Jesus teaches us to acknowledge the power of sin in our lives. He would not have us pretend that it does not afflict us. We confess our sin as an honest recognition that sin would hold us in bondage.
Anxiety is a symptom of sin. Jesus gives Himself as the spiritual medicine we need. Our healing takes the form of prayer and confession. We trust our Lord's mercy, so we name the disease and symptoms for what they are.
As we find healing in the mercy of the Father, His gifts to us extend to the blessing of human wisdom and knowledge that can treat our many diseases. Our healing of anxiety can come directly from God or through the ministrations of those appointed to use the healing arts.