Are the waves of anxiety crashing around you? For you, it may be an ominous surge, a torrent, threatening to inundate you. Or maybe it’s more subtle, like standing at a shore, understanding that there are unknowns out there in the depths, wondering if you might be overtaken any moment. Or perhaps your experience is more like a mix of erratic waves catching you unaware, lifting you off your feet at unpredictable times.

Regardless of exactly how you have been swept into anxiety’s undertow, there is often no warning. No cautionary “danger: strong currents” sign to prepare you. As someone who was initially swept off my feet and overwhelmed, I stand in solidarity, dripping wet with you.

As I consider all God has taught me, I can say something now that, when the waters engulfed me and I was at the bottom of the sea, I never thought possible, and that is this: I went from believing that anxiety was the worst thing that could happen to me to now knowing that anxiety became one of the best things that has ever happened to my faith.

Overall, I can make this statement because I have come to see that being a conqueror is not measured by never feeling anxious again. I realize this is not the prevailing litmus test for victory we are so often taught. We are told to measure our success or failure with any given struggle based on how well we keep it at bay. If we sense the struggle on a certain day, we have failed the test. If we don’t sense it much at all, we have succeeded.

Not the Way of Scripture

This is not how the Bible handles our struggles, ailments, or weaknesses. To sense struggle is not victory or defeat in and of itself. To feel our weaknesses in the face of suffering is not failure. In fact, to feel the acuteness of our fragility and acknowledge the acuteness of God’s divinity opens a portal to true success, which is a deep dependence on a never-anxious God.

I was surprised by this discovery because a lot of teaching on anxiety will tell you that to overcome it, the person you need to understand and depend on is you. If you take these ten courageous steps and find strength within yourself by mustering up enough mental power, you will conquer the waves of anxiety like a pro-Olympic surfer and become the champion of your own story. But the first-place award is awarded to the One who is over the winds and waves. We need to lift our eyes from all that swirls in our own head and up to the Prince of Peace, because He is the true hero of our story. One of the most courageous things you can do is to ask Him for help.

As it turns out, my anxiety was not an obstacle that I needed to avoid: it was a portal to a person I needed to behold: Jesus Christ. And so, I learned that every trembling trial we have is another push toward Him. I now no longer ask myself, “Did I avoid the wave of anxiety today?” Instead, I ask myself, “When I feel the wave, big or little, who will I depend on?”

The Bible promises that in this world, we will have trouble, so I can be assured that there will always be an opportunity for anxiety. I may re-enter a stronger anxiety storm than I’ve faced thus far. Or, in spite of the world and by God’s grace, I may continue to recover from anxiety, even experiencing a miraculous and total release from its grip.

Weakness Leads Us to Strength

But here’s something I know to be true either way. Even if I never again tremble in the ways I have, I never want God to take away what I have learned in my most anxious season thus far—the weakness that led me to dependence and reliance upon the Lord. The ability to rejoice in what God is doing despite how I feel. The opportunity to see the heavenly realities that go beyond earthly boundaries and burdens. The endurance to find hope when circumstances seem bleak and hopeless.

God has graciously lifted my eyes upward to see that victory is in Jesus, even when my steps falter because my body feels broken. In the seasons when anxiety’s waves have crashed onto my frame and I’ve trembled to my core, I have learned what it is to lay hold of the only anchor that can sustain us in the trying waters, and that is Christ.

Tune in to hear Blair Linne this Tuesday on LIFE TODAY. Adapted from Made to Tremble by Blair Linne. Copyright © 2025 by Blair Linne. Published by B&H Publishing Group. Used by permission.