Have you ever felt guilty about experiencing anxiety?
If you read the Bible often or spend a lot of time in the church, you’re probably familiar with verses like this one: “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done”(Philippians 4:6).
It’s easy to read this and feel ashamed whenever anxiety hijacks our hearts. This shame can cause us to pull away from the God who is our peace. It can lead us to deny our struggle, suppress our concerns, or just try harder to stop worrying — as if we could overcome our inner turmoil by the sheer force of our will.
God calls us to something far more holistic and relational.
As humans made in his image, we’re emotional beings like the Creator we reflect. Scripture reveals a God who experiences a range of emotions. He’s not disappointed by the big feelings we face. In fact, when we carry personal concerns, experience life crises, or encounter the world’s brokenness, it’s natural to feel deeply troubled. To not feel this turmoil would not be human.
As someone who’s dealt with more than a little worry in my life, even needing anti-anxiety medication during especially difficult seasons, this topic lives close to my heart. I want to walk faithfully with God and practice wise mental health habits.
Is it possible to do both?
Scripture reveals that it is. Let’s do a deep dive into God’s Word and discover a healthy framework for tending to our inner and outer lives.
First, however, it’s important to acknowledge that not all anxiety is created equal.
Holistic Mental Health
In my early adult years, I viewed anxiety as sin and depression as a lack of faith. Then a series of events turned my life upside down. Depression became my constant companion. Anxiety clouded my thinking. Panic attacks had me pulling over on the side of the road because I couldn’t breathe.
I still loved Jesus. I still read my Bible and went to church and clung to my faith. That’s when I learned there’s more to the story.
We humans are complex creatures. Our bodies are no less sacred than our spirits. Our emotions were created by God as much as our minds. What affects one part of us impacts the whole.
When we talk about anxiety, we must acknowledge the importance of holistic care. God uses pastors and doctors, therapists and naturopaths, friends and professionals to help us along the way. As we look at what Scripture says about anxiety, let’s honor the sacredness of our whole selves. Let’s lean into faith while also taking care of our bodies, minds, and emotions.
Anxiety in the Bible
In the New Testament’s original Greek, the most common word for worry is merimnaó.Bible Hub defines it this way: “to be anxious, to worry, to care for.” From this definition, we see it’s used with both negative and positive connotations. Check out the following verses. (Each bolded word is merimnaó in the original text.)
“Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?” (Matthew 6:25).
“’Martha, Martha,’ the Lord answered, ‘you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed — or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her’” (Luke 10:41-42).
“I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs — how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world — how he can please his wife — and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world — how she can please her husband” (1 Corinthians 7:32-34).
“There should be no division in the body, but its parts should have equal concern for each other” (1 Corinthians 12:25).
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6).
“I have no one else like Timothy, who genuinely cares about your welfare” (Philemon 2:20).
Context Clues
To understand whether this word is used negatively or positively, let’s consider the context of each passage.
In Matthew 6, Jesus warned his followers not to merimnaó about daily necessities because it’s ineffective (verse 27). Paul echoed these instructions in Philippians 4. Worrying doesn’t change our situation for the better. Instead, such anxiety takes our eyes off the Father who cares for us, convincing us we must meet our own needs. It blinds us to God’s deep love for us as his treasured children and robs us of the peace that comes from bringing our needs to him in heartfelt prayer.
In 1 Corinthians 7 and 12 and Philemon 2, on the other hand, the same word is used to indicate healthy concern for others. Husbands and wives should care for one another, as should all believers in God’s family. We ought to know and love each other well, working toward unity so we can build healthy relationships.
We can, however, idolize taking care of others, as we see in Martha’s life (Luke 10). Like Martha, we can allow concern for others to distract us from resting in and receiving from Christ. We may even assume God measures our worth and value by how well we serve him and others.
From these context clues, we discover that merimnaó is a bad thing when it turns us inward — to self-sufficiency, to forgetting God’s love, to meeting others’ needs in unhealthy ways. When we recognize this in our souls, our Father invites us to come to him boldly, pour out our hearts, and receive his peace and provision.
Grammar Matters
In John’s gospel, we find a related Greek word — tarassō. The NLT translates this as “deeply troubled.” Blue Letter Bible describes tarassō this way: “to cause one inward commotion, take away his calmness of mind, disturb his equanimity.”
My goodness, do I know how this feels. From a heart-piercing comment thrown my way, to life coming unraveled at the seams, any number of factors can disturb my soul.
Jesus felt this inward agony, too. At Lazarus’ tomb, he saw the anguish of the people around him and was deeply troubled (John 11:33). When he told his disciples about his impending betrayal, abandonment, and death, tarassō again described the state of his soul (John 12:27, 13:21.)
Yet in John 14:1 and 27, after expressing his own inner turmoil, Jesus used the same word to instruct his disciples not to let their hearts be troubled. Since Scripture tells us Jesus never sinned, he can’t be pulling a, “do what I say, not what I do” move. So, what’s going on here?
Looking at the Greek verb tenses provides some beautiful insight. When Jesus was “deeply troubled,” the verb indicates a simple action. It merely describes his lack of calmness, the presence of inward commotion in his soul. The circumstances around him and the events ahead of him were deeply disturbing — and rightly so.
In John 14, on the other hand, the verb tense indicates continuous action. Jesus had just told them he was going away, and he knew their hearts were deeply unsettled. Again, the feeling was only natural. He didn’t condemn them for experiencing this — he knew the feeling himself! But he warned them not to stay there.
God Cares for Our Well-Being
1 John 5:3 describes God’s commands as “not burdensome” and his instructions against worry beautifully illustrate this truth. When Jesus tells his disciples not to worry, he does so for their own good, as we can see from looking back at our first Greek word.
Merimnaó comes from the root word mérimna, meaning “a part, separated from the whole…dividing and fracturing a person’s being into parts.” Worry pulls us apart on the inside. It hinders us from living in healthy connection to God, ourselves, and others. So, when God tells us not to worry, he demonstrates his tender concern for our inner wholeness and reveals his gentle, loving heart.
As followers of Jesus, peace is our inheritance. Otherworldly peace. Peace that passes understanding. Peace that can’t be ultimately destroyed by chaos, suffering, or loss. This is God’s heart for his people, the reason he calls us not to stay stuck in anxiety.
But how do we get there? How do we trade peace for worry? How do we choose trust over doubt?
Bringing God Our Whole Selves
When God calls us to love him with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength (Mark 12:30), he’s inviting us into embodied faith, into a relationship where we’re already loved, into freedom to bring him our authentic selves — anxiety and all. Just as Jesus didn’t condemn his first-century followers for feeling troubled, he offers his followers today zero condemnation as well (Romans 8:1).
So, when our hearts become deeply troubled, when anxiety fractures our souls, when troubles of hurricane proportions overcome our sense of inner peace, we can find good company in Jesus. Instead of relegating us to the shadows of shame, he invites us to draw near and pour out our souls. To tell him what’s going on in our bodies, to verbalize the doubts plaguing our minds, to welcome him into the corners of our beings and know he’ll meet us with grace.
The Antidote to Anxiety
Once we’ve brought God our authentic selves, he invites us to rest in his loving acceptance and tender care. For in this place of quiet vulnerability, God often reveals aspects of his character we could only see with our souls laid bare.
Anxiety tells us God isn’t good. It drives us to take care of ourselves. It paints the future as bleak and our options as human-sized.
Jesus, on the other hand, calls us to trust him (John 14:1) — not a type of mind-over-matter trust, but trust that’s the overflow of a relationship where we experience God as beautiful and good. When Jesus told his disciples not to worry, he rooted these instructions in the theology of a God who values us, who knows our needs, who cares deeply and provides lovingly, and who works all things for our good.
So, when life disquiets our souls, let’s lead our hearts to the presence of God and let him guard our hearts with his peace.
This article was originally published on July 24, 2025 atBible Study tools.
Have you ever felt guilty about experiencing anxiety?
If you read the Bible often or spend a lot of time in the church, you’re probably familiar with verses like this one: “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done”(Philippians 4:6).
It’s easy to read this and feel ashamed whenever anxiety hijacks our hearts. This shame can cause us to pull away from the God who is our peace. It can lead us to deny our struggle, suppress our concerns, or just try harder to stop worrying — as if we could overcome our inner turmoil by the sheer force of our will.
God calls us to something far more holistic and relational.
As humans made in his image, we’re emotional beings like the Creator we reflect. Scripture reveals a God who experiences a range of emotions. He’s not disappointed by the big feelings we face. In fact, when we carry personal concerns, experience life crises, or encounter the world’s brokenness, it’s natural to feel deeply troubled. To not feel this turmoil would not be human.
As someone who’s dealt with more than a little worry in my life, even needing anti-anxiety medication during especially difficult seasons, this topic lives close to my heart. I want to walk faithfully with God and practice wise mental health habits.
Is it possible to do both?
Scripture reveals that it is. Let’s do a deep dive into God’s Word and discover a healthy framework for tending to our inner and outer lives.
First, however, it’s important to acknowledge that not all anxiety is created equal.
The lyrics to the church worship song fell flat on my heavy heart. With my mind, I trust in the goodness of God — it’s one of my deepest core beliefs. But that day, my emotions were a tangled mess of confusion, grief, and anger as I walked through a very painful season.
“God, this doesn’t feel good. I’m struggling to sing these words today.” I wanted to keep believing he’s good, but clinging to hope when the future looked bleak took some serious wrestling with God.
Hold it together. Don’t bawl in front of everyone. You did that last week, surely you can keep your composure this week. I wish I had a tissue.
Suddenly, I felt a friend standing next to me. She put her arm around my shoulder and pulled me into a welcomed hug. From where she sat two rows behind me, she’d noticed my struggle. Maybe it was the way I kept dabbing at my eyes as I tried to be discreet. Maybe it was my hunched shoulders, tense with bottled-up emotions. Somehow, she noticed me hurting and didn’t want me to stand there alone.
A minute later, a second friend put her arm around me from the other side. Then I felt a hand on my back from someone in the row behind me.
The dam broke. The tears flowed. Sobs shook my body. And my friends stayed right by my side. They didn’t care that I fell apart. They just wanted me to know I wasn’t alone.
As we stood there, God’s Spirit whispered silently to my soul. I do love you, even though circumstances are hard. I am good, even when life is not. You’re surrounded by mercy.
And quite literally, I was.
As someone whose story is riddled with religious trauma, leaning into church life can be a challenge for me. But through this beautiful community we call our church home, I’m learning how God invites us to walk together through suffering.
Beware of Spiritual Bypassing
One of the greatest hindrances to helping our hurting friends is the practice of spiritual bypassing. Psychotherapist Dr. Alison Cook explains that spiritual bypassing is “using spiritual concepts, platitudes, or spiritual language to bypass or over-spiritualize the real struggles that we face.” It shortcuts the deep work God wants to do in our hearts by offering a quick-fix, a mind-over-matter solution, a focus on performance rather than a process of inner renewal.
Regrettably, I’ve been guilty of spiritual bypassing on many occasions. In response to someone’s painful story, I’ve quoted Bible verses, offered simplistic solutions, or evaded my own discomfort by promising to pray for them, then walking away. (And I may or may not have remembered to pray.) Sometimes I’ve even patted myself on the back afterwards, congratulating myself for “sharing the truth.”
In reality, though, my help was not helpful.
In a previous article, we looked at ways spiritual bypassing harms people — misrepresenting God’s heart, hindering authentic connection, causing us to feel unknown, and ignoring the whole person. In that article, we explored how to avoid this on a personal level. Today, let’s focus on the broader picture of avoiding spiritual bypassing in our communities.
For seven ways we can offer life-giving support, hop over to Bible Study Tools.
Is it possible to disagree without being disagreeable? How can Christians hold different opinions without creating division? What heart attitudes promote harmony in a dissonant world?
Throughout the New Testament, God calls his people to like-mindedness.
“Live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose” (1 Corinthians 1:10).
“Make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind” (Philippians 2:2).
“Let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up” (Romans 14:19).
These verses have me nodding my head in agreement. Yes, unity is beautiful — a noble calling for a holy people. I want to live this way. To build others up, to represent the gospel well, to reflect the God who is our peace.
In the everyday, though, life gets messy.
We all operate with our own unique filters: our culture, our family background, our stories, our church affiliation, our wounds, our personalities. Even as Christians, we hold different beliefs, have different priorities, lean toward different preferences.
How, then, can we possibly promote peace?
As humans we often gravitate to one extreme or another. Many of us are conflict avoidant. We run from disagreement or quietly smile and nod, keeping our thoughts and opinions to ourselves. Others of us are confrontational. If we disagree, we don’t mind saying so. In both situations, our natural responses can lead to division.
Here, as in many other situations, God beckons us into the middle spaces of grace where uniformity isn’t necessary for unity. He wants to reshape our hearts so we can speak up with confidence when something needs to be said, and we can listen with humility when he calls us to be quiet. We can learn to bring harmony into the situations we encounter as God weaves his peace into our souls.
5 Attitudes for Disagreeing without Dividing
1. Humility
In my young adult years, I held firm beliefs on many topics — especially when it came to the Bible. After walking through the collapse and reconstruction of my faith, however, I learned there’s often a bigger picture than what I can see on my own. For sure, truth is absolute, and the Bible speaks clearly on many black and white issues.
But life also holds many gray areas. On these topics, the Bible leaves room for us to lean into God, to learn and study and explore, to listen for his voice while embracing humility and a teachable heart.
1 Peter 5:5 instructs us, “Dress yourselves in humility as you relate to one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’”
Humility paves the way for growth. It fosters healthy conversations and leaves room for others to express different viewpoints. It enables us to listen without defensiveness and learn from one another.
2. Curiosity
If humility opens the door for authentic conversations, curiosity helps those conversations go deep and wide. Scripture calls us to be quick to listen and slow to speak (James 1:19). Curiosity helps us do just that.
A few years ago, our family started attending a new church. Before settling here, we’d never spent time in this particular denomination. Everything felt new. New terminology, new methodology, new worship styles. We asked lots of questions. We discussed Bible passages and enjoyed many thought-provoking conversations. We gleaned beautiful insight from orthodox voices in a different church tradition.
It felt like stretching, like growing. More than anything, it felt like learning to value our brothers and sisters in the larger Body of Christ.
Curiosity helps us avoid making assumptions based on hearsay or preconceived ideas. It creates space to understand and be understood, to know and be known. It allows us to see souls, not just differences.
3. Respect
By approaching hard conversations with humility and curiosity, we can learn to live with respect. 1 Peter 2:17 instructs us to “Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, [and] fear God…”
Each person we encounter bears God’s image and has immeasurable worth and value. When we treat one another respectfully, we honor God.
In hard conversations with other believers, it’s important to remember that like us, they have the Spirit of God living within them. We should honor their walk with Christ and acknowledge his work in their lives, even in times of disagreement.
An attitude of respect enables us to treat people with dignity. It helps us obey Proverbs 3:3: “Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart.”
4. Open-Heartedness
Romans 14 is my go-to passage for relating well with other Christians. In this chapter, the apostle Paul addresses a hot topic in the church at Corinth — eating meat sacrificed to idols. While this may seem strange to many twenty-first century believers, it was a point of major contention for this early church.
Paul urges believers on both sides of the issue to accept each other. In the Bible’s original Greek, acceptance carries the idea of friendship, of welcoming someone close and allowing them access to your heart.
In the family of God, Christians are called to welcome one another — even those with whom we disagree.
Why? Because God accepts them, just as he accepts us. Based on our mutual faith in Christ, we stand accepted by our Father. He has granted us access to his heart and lavished us with his favor. He is the One who helps us stand strong in our faith, and he is the One to whom we will give account.
While we may naturally gravitate to those with similar viewpoints, God calls us to live with an open heart toward those who view life differently.
5. Confidence
Relating to one another with acceptance, however, doesn’t mean our differences are unimportant. It doesn’t excuse sin that should be confronted or negate the need for sound doctrine and healthy boundaries. It doesn’t minimize personal conviction or call us to simply conform to the beliefs of those around us.
On the contrary, Romans 14:5 instructs us to be fully convinced in our own minds that what we believe is true. God calls us to study his Word, seek his heart, and allow his Spirit to teach us. As he guides us in forming convictions, we’ll learn to live out our faith with confidence and to share our beliefs with grace.
Differences are a necessary part of life. Jesus made it clear that he came to present people with a choice to either accept or reject him by faith. As Christians, we won’t always agree with those who don’t know him. God calls us to relate to non-believers with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15-16).
Within the family of faith, differences of belief are also unavoidable. Denominations exist because, as we study his Word, we Christians land in different places on secondary and tertiary issues. This can be a beautiful thing. We can learn from one other and grow in grace as we remember what we hold in common and allow space for what we see differently.
Our Source of Unity
As is true with every quality God calls us to practice, these heart attitudes can only grow in us through connection with God’s Spirit. Rather than demanding we perform them for him, he calls us to receive them from him.
His Spirit is our Source. Whenever we see in ourselves a lack of humility, curiosity, respect, open-heartedness, or confidence, God beckons us to bring our wrong attitudes into his light. To turn from our lack to his abundance. To allow his Spirit to renew our minds so our attitudes and actions can change as a result. As he does this, we’ll become more and more like him.
The God who calls us to “Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace” (Ephesians 4:3) will teach us how to “be of one mind. Sympathize with each other. Love each other as brothers and sisters. Be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude” (1 Peter 3:8).
The following quote has been variously attributed to St. Augustine, John Wesley, and others. But regardless of who said it, it sums up our Christian calling well:
“In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”
As we walk with God and allow him to form his character in our lives, may he use us to promote harmony among the people he loves.
This article originally appeared at Bible Study Tools on 12/16/2024.
“God has a plan so everything’s going to work out.”
“Just give it to Jesus and count your blessings.”
“Keep praying and reading your Bible.”
If you’ve spent much time in Christian circles, you’ve likely heard phrases like these. Maybe, like me, you’ve even spoken them. They’re often well intentioned — our best attempts to help a struggling friend (or ourselves) cope with pain and hold onto faith. But while they may contain an element of truth, these types of comments have potential to cause great harm.
Psychologists call them spiritual bypassing.
What Is Spiritual Bypassing?
As Christians, we know God calls us to “Consider it all joy … when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces perseverance” (James 1:2-3). Jesus predicted that “In this world you will have trouble,” adding the encouragement to “Take heart! [He has] overcome the world” (John 16:33). The apostle Paul instructed us, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done” (Philippians 4:6).
God intends for these Scriptures to be lifegiving. Through them, he reminds us of the bigger picture — that this world is not our home, that justice and truth will triumph in the end, that our loving Father is personally involved in each situation we face. He’s actively working for our good, redeeming our suffering and making all things new (Revelation 21:5).
Too often, however, we use these verses and others in damaging ways, instead of receiving the healing they offer. We forget about the process. We believe God wants white-knuckled obedience more than anything else. We take what he meant for good and use it to spiritually bypass the deep work he wants to do in our hearts.
“Spiritual bypassing is when a person uses Scripture, religious concepts or ideals, and spiritual mantras to ‘bypass’ the effects of a negative experience out of a desire to ease their pain…,” explains Peridot Gilbert-Reed in a Christianity Todayarticle.
This practice isn’t new, nor is it unique to Christianity. The term was coined by a Buddhist psychotherapist in the 1980’s. He defined it as a “tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.”
While people of any faith can fall into spiritual bypassing, Christians are especially prone to this escape mechanism.
It shows up in our conversations when we admit we’re struggling, but end on a positive note about how God’s still good all the time, though secretly we’re doubting it’s true. It’s in our worship songs when we only focus on the positive, as if every situation has a happily-ever-after ending. It sneaks into our living rooms when we listen to a family member’s pain and respond with a pat warning not to get angry at God.
We mean well. Maybe we even think the Lord requires this of us — to will ourselves to trust, to combat doubt by quoting Scripture verses, to overcome worry by the sheer force of our will.
Yet God calls us to something far more transformative.
In Psalm 51:6, we discover his desire for each of his beloved children. “Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.” In the deepest part of our souls, that place where our subconscious, emotional beliefs reside – this is where our Father wants to teach us his ways.
When we embrace spiritual bypassing, we short-circuit the redemptive work God invites us to lean into, hurting ourselves and others in the process.
4 Ways Spiritual Bypassing Harms Us
Spiritual bypassing may sound pious on the surface, but it often undermines the faith it claims to champion. It offers a “quick fix,” yet it comes with a high price tag.
1. Spiritual Bypassing Misrepresents God’s Heart
Throughout Scripture, we discover a multifaceted God. He describes himself as “the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished…” (Exodus 34:6-7). He invites his children to come to his “throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). He promises “whoever comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37).
Spiritual bypassing paints a drastically different picture. It presents God as unrelatable when it calls us to simply try harder. It suggests his heart is callous when it demands we bury our pain. It implies he’s impersonal when it urges performance over relationship. It portrays him as easily angered when it condemns our doubts and silences our questions.
Spiritual bypassing prevents us from truly experiencing our Father’s heart.
2. Spiritual Bypassing Hinders Authentic Connection with God
Jesus taught his disciples that life is found in knowing God (John 17:3). His Spirit is our source of vitality, refreshment, healing, fruitfulness, and everything else that is good. We receive these blessings through our relationship with him.
Yet spiritual bypassing hinders us from connecting authentically with him. When we suppress our emotions, we avoid the healing and fresh perspective that comes from processing our interior life with God. When we try to reason away our doubts, we settle for human logic instead of listening for his Spirit’s still, small voice. When we minimize our pain, we forfeit the opportunity to experience the tenderness and compassion of Christ.
Spiritual bypassing leads us to settle for shallow faith.
3. Spiritual Bypassing Causes Us to Feel Unknown
Ours is a relational God. From eternity, each member of the Trinity has existed in perfect harmony with the Others. He made us for relationship, too — with him and with each other.
Spiritual bypassing undermines our need to know and be known — by God, by others, even by ourselves. When we bypass how we’re really feeling, we’re left to struggle alone. When we present only the positive aspects of our lives, we portray a false image that holds others at a distance. When we keep questions and doubts to ourselves, we lose the opportunity to hear how others have experienced the Lord in similar situations.
Spiritual bypassing trades connection for isolation.
4. Spiritual Bypassing Ignores the Whole Person
As humans made in the image of God, we are complex creatures. He wove together our bodies, minds, emotions, and spirits with intricate beauty. Each part of our humanity impacts all the others.
Spiritual bypassing attempts to treat all problems from a solely spiritual perspective:
Has your friend wounded you? Choose to overlook the offence. Just forgive and forget — seventy times seven.
Does anxiety weigh you down, making it hard to function through the day and impossible to sleep at night? Repent of your worry and memorize Bible verses about trusting God.
Has addiction sabotaged your life? Get more accountability and let shame drive you to change.
While it’s true God calls us to forgive, to cast our cares on him, and to live by his Spirit rather than addiction, holistic wisdom makes room for other solutions as well. God often uses therapists, doctors, medication, and recovery programs — along with spiritual leaders — to grow us in wholeness and maturity.
Spiritual bypassing neglects whole-person care.
A Healthier Alternative
Far better than spiritual bypassing is the practice of embodied faith. Embodied faith, explains Dr. Alison Cook, is “a faith that includes our hands, our feet, our nervous systems, our mind, our emotions. It’s holistic.” Personal embodied faith pays attention to what’s going on within us and uses our observations as a starting point for conversations with God’s Spirit.
King David modeled this throughout the Psalms. (See Psalm 6, 31, 38, 39, 88.) The book of Job vividly describes the pain that ravaged Job, body and soul, and it records his honest conversations with God about his suffering.
For believers living on this side of the cross, embodied faith acknowledges that our bodies are God’s temples. It welcomes his presence in our whole person, inviting him into every closet and corner of our souls. It recognizes that here, in the deepest part of our being, the Holy Spirit does his most profound work.
I’m learning that faith this real, this raw, takes practice. It requires us to make space for silence, time for process, and room for mystery. It calls us to live with curiosity, gentleness, humility, patience, and authenticity.
For me, cultivating embodied faith often begins in quiet moments alone with the Lord, using something my counselor friends call a “body scan.” From head to toe, I notice symptoms I feel on a physical level. With pen and journal in hand, I ask God, “Where do you find me today?” and I take note of what I observe. I talk with him about why I’m feeling the tension, the pain, the restlessness, etc. In prayer, I process the emotions underlying those bodily symptoms. Then I listen for anything his silent voice may want to reveal to my heart. He often points out deeper issues of the soul — unmet needs, unhealed wounds, burning questions, beliefs in crisis, misunderstandings about his character…
Sometimes in this process, the Holy Spirit leads me to parts of Scripture that relate to what I’m experiencing. Other times, he reminds me of an article I saved to read later, or he prompts me to reach out for a friend’s perspective or a professional’s expertise. Sometimes he’s simply present with me as I pour out my heart, allowing me to experience the comfort of his closeness and the healing power of his love.
Embodied Faith in Community
Embodied faith helps us live out James 1:19: “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.”
As we practice personal embodied faith, we grow in our capacity to help others do the same. We learn to recognize spiritual bypassing and avoid using it in conversations with our friends and loved ones. We become better active listeners. We relate with compassion, humility, and wisdom gleaned from our own experience with Christ. Through embodied faith, we more accurately represent the God who welcomes each of us into a deep, authentic relationship with himself.
The Christian life isn’t about bypassing our struggles, ignoring our pain, or fixing ourselves for God. On the contrary, it’s about bringing ourselves, our whole selves, to the One who loves us dearly. It’s about receiving from, resting in, and responding to His Spirit. As we do this, we’ll find that God meets us at the intersection between real life and real faith.
This post was originally published on 4/24/2025 at Bible Study Tools.
