Practice

In my work as a clinical counselor at Anderson University (South Carolina), one of the most common reasons a student walks into my office is anxiety. What surprises people is how many of those students are deeply religious. For those in mental health, this makes sense. Faith and anxiety intersect more often than we might expect. In the previous article, we discussed how Scripture and good therapy often point to the same human realities. Today we’ll take that conversation deeper. The church has always had a toolkit for anxious minds, but we have not always remembered the vocabulary. 

Ordinary vs. Disordered Anxiety 

Before we jump into what Scripture says, it is important to distinguish ordinary anxiety from an anxiety disorder. Ordinary anxiety comes and goes. Ruminative anxiety loops. It circles the same thought, the same fear, the same intrusive image repeatedly. In therapy, we call this the Anxiety Cycle. An intrusive thought appears, the person becomes anxious, they seek reassurance (compulsion), they experience temporary relief, then the thought returns with equal or greater force, and the cycle repeats.¹

OCD and Scrupulosity 

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, or OCD, is a clinical anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors or mental acts (compulsions) performed to reduce the distress those thoughts cause.²

Scrupulosity is the religious sub-type of OCD. This sub-type hijacks faith. Sufferers fear they have committed the unforgiveable sin, engage in excessive confession, ruminate on whether their salvation is real, and question whether God’s love is true. As Jeff Szymanski, PhD, describes it,  

“Most people practice the rituals of their faith and then move on, satisfied they have fulfilled their religious obligations. People with religious scrupulosity, however, fear that what they do is never enough, that they are never enough, or that they have offended their God in some way.”³

Reassurance-seeking looks like a request for love and acceptance. Clinically, it reinforces the disorder. A student may be reassured by three different spiritual leaders in a week, each conversation bringing relief that lasts a few hours before the intrusive thought returns.  

This is why ministry leaders need clinical vocabulary! What looks like spiritual seriousness or a repeated need to be saved at the altar may be a treatable disorder. If you suspect a young adult is struggling with OCD or scrupulosity, refer them to a clinician trained in Exposure and Response Prevention, the standard treatment recognized by the International OCD Foundation.⁴ That referral is an act of love. 

Scriptural Practices for Combatting
Ordinary Anxiety 

Scripture is not silent on the anxious mind.

Lament

Lament is the first practice worth naming. Roughly a third of the Psalms are laments, making it the largest single category of prayer in Scripture. This is the language the Bible gives us for anxiety, grief, and confusion. It is a structured, embodied way of bringing our pain to God without pretending. Something I often tell my clients is that it is okay to bring your emotions to the Lord. He is big enough to handle your anger, doubt, and confusion. To say otherwise is to make him small. Scripture is filled with people who wrestled with God. Jacob walked away with a limp. Job demanded answers. David poured out his fears through the Psalms. Jeremiah wrote an entire book called Lamentations.  

Lament Modeled in Psalm 13 

Psalm 13 is a working model for us. The Psalmist opens with, “How Long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” (Psalm 13:1). The psalm moves through complaint, petition, and eventually trust, without ever pretending the pain is not real. In other words, lament functions clinically like therapeutic journaling and expressive writing, both of which help people process difficult experiences and reduce emotional distress.

“It is possible to experience difficult emotions without actually understanding what they are or why they’ve arrived. Creative writing can break through this confusion. Once thoughts or emotions are expressed in written form, they seem easier to clarify.”⁵

The church has too often failed young people by teaching them pray with a filter. Jesus told us we could always bring our worries to him. He said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).  

Lament is the practice of taking Jesus at his word. Give a young adult Psalm 13 and ask them to rewrite it in their own words, starting with their own complaint, petition, and line of trust, even a partial one. This practice often gives believers permission they did not know they had.  

Breath Prayer

While lament brings the anxious mind to God. Breath prayer brings the anxious body along too. Breath prayer is an ancient Christian tradition that is also rooted in Scripture. The Hebrew word for breath is ruach. The Greek word is pneuma. Both mean “breath” and “spirit.” Genesis 2 tells us that God breathed life into Adam. In John 20:22, the resurrected Jesus breathes on his disciples. The physiology matches the theology.  

On a physiological level, slow, controlled breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which physically lowers anxiety.⁶ Breath prayer overlaps significantly with modern grounding techniques, box breathing, and paced respiration that are all used in evidence-based anxiety treatment.  

Breath Prayer with Psalm 46:10 

To help a disciple learn to use breath prayer, you might implement this exercise:

• Choose a short phrase of Scripture that feels grounding and peaceful (Psalm 46:10a might be a good place to start).
• Inhale slowly while saying the first phrase.
• Exhale on the second half.
• Like this: “Be still” (inhale), “and know that I am God” (exhale).

Practiced daily, this kind of prayer becomes both a spiritual discipline and a physiological reset.  

Sabbath

The third practice brings time itself under the lordship of God. Sabbath is embodied theology. Genesis 2:2 tells us that God rested after his acts of creation, Exodus 20:8–11 issues Sabbath as a commandment, and Deuteronomy 5:12–15 grounds Sabbath in liberation from slavery.

A question I often ask clients who struggle with rest is: What makes you feel like you don’t need rest when even God rested? In a culture that measures worth by output, Sabbath is a weekly declaration that we are more than we produce. John Mark Comer names it plainly: “Hurry is a form of violence to the soul.”⁷  

The clinical parallel to Sabbath keeping is direct. Rest, boundaries, unplugging, and structured downtime are foundational anxiety interventions. Every clinician working with anxious young adults teaches some version of Sabbath, even if they never call it that. Gen Z specifically struggles with rest because they were taught that their identities are tied to output, performance, and visibility. A generation that cannot stop performing cannot rest.  

Sabbath in Practice

Remember, Sabbath does not have to be a rigid 24-hour observance to count. It just has to be real, embodied, and repeated. A young adult who protects intentional hours of Sabbath weekly will experience both clinical benefit and spiritual formation. We must help them by designing a Sabbath practice they can keep. 

To start, ask them two questions: What depletes you? and What restores you? Build the practice around their honest answers.  

The Church’s Contribution to Solving the Mental Health Crisis 

These three ancient practices bring the whole person before God. Lament for the honest mind, breath as living sacrifice for the body, and Sabbath for the weary soul. They are the church’s native contribution to mediating the mental health crisis. When offered alongside clinical care they are massively effective.  

However, none of these practices are meant to be done alone. Anxiety flourishes in isolation but heals in relationship. Authentic Christian community is one of the most powerful anxiety interventions available. Reassurance has its place, speaking comfort and truth into a friend’s fear is a good thing. But when a scrupulous young adult confesses the same intrusive thought week after week, reassurance alone quietly feeds the cycle. Authentic community offers comfort and holds space for honest struggle without demanding immediate resolution. It points them toward these ancient practices and knows when to point them toward professional care.  

If a young adult you love is trapped in a ruminative cycle of anxiety or scrupulosity, walk with them into these practices and help them find trained clinicians. Both are acts of love. The church has always had a toolkit for anxious minds. Our work now is to remember the vocabulary and hand it to the next generation. You do not have to be someone’s therapist. But please, be their guide into the practices the church has been keeping for centuries.  

Article by Jalen Allen.

1.  Ashley Butterfield, “Understanding the Cycle of Anxiety,” The OCD & Anxiety Center, 2021, https://theocdandanxietycenter.com/understanding-the-cycle-of-anxiety. ↩︎
2. “Understanding OCD: What It Is and How to Treat It,” Deconstructingstigma.org, Mclean Hospital, 2025, https://deconstructingstigma.org/guides/ocd. ↩︎
3. Jeff Szymanski. “Scrupulosity: When OCD and Faith Collide,” Deconstructingstigma.org, 2025, https://deconstructingstigma.org/guides/scrupulosity. ↩︎
4.  Jon Abramowitz, “Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy,” International OCD Foundation, 2025, https://iocdf.org/about-ocd/ocd-treatment-guide/exposure-response-prevention. ↩︎
5. “Creative Writing as Therapy: Unlocking Emotional Health Through Storytelling,” Upenn.edu, Penn LPS Online, 2025, https://lpsonline.sas.upenn.edu/features/creative-writing-therapy-unlocking-emotional-health-through-storytelling.  ↩︎
6.  Jerath R Crawford and Harden K Barnes, “Self-regulation of breathing as a primary treatment for anxiety,” Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback, June 2015, 40(2):107–15.  ↩︎
7. John Mark Comer, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry (Colorado Springs: Waterbrook, 2019). ↩︎