How to Pray When You’re Feeling Anxious

The question of how to pray when you are anxious begs the question: Well, what about when you are not anxious, but are relaxed? Angry? Furious? Complacent? Sad? Jealous? Perplexed? Happy? Expansive? Elated? Grateful? Some complicated mixture of several of the above? These states of mind represent only a few of those from which prayer may (and should) issue. John Calvin called the Psalter “an anatomy of the soul,” asserting that “there is not an emotion of which anyone can be conscious that is not here represented . . . all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, in short, all the distracting emotions with which the minds of men are wont to be agitated.1” And, as the Psalter has rightly been called the "songbook" of the church, so is it also a “prayer book.” Many of the Psalms were written, prayed, and sung from a state of deep anxiety, our topic at hand, to which my thoughts will be limited after a brief digression into prayer offered in the apparent absence of anxiety.

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