When Peace Feels Impossible

Why “Do Not Be Anxious” Doesn’t Work Until You Start Here

We love Philippians 4:6-7. We quote it. We put it on coffee mugs and bumper stickers. We rehearse it in our minds when anxiety flares, hoping it will act as a kind of incantation against the flood. But if we’re honest, we often feel like it doesn’t work.

“Do not be anxious about anything,” Paul says, as if anxiety were a faucet we could simply shut off. And so we try. We strive. We clench our fists. We breathe slower. We tell ourselves that worry is irrational and unproductive, and that peace is a choice. And when it still doesn’t come, we conclude that either we are broken beyond repair, or the Word has let us down. But what if neither conclusion is true.

Paul’s words are not sentimental fluff. They are not naïve commands to fake peace in the middle of chaos. But they also weren’t written to be obeyed in isolation. There is a hidden key here, and it’s buried in the verse that precedes the one we’ve clung to for years. Paul didn’t start his thought with “Do not be anxious.” Context matters. He started by writing, “The Lord is at hand.”

That phrase changes everything, because if you skip the presence, you’ll never find the peace you were designed to walk in.

Anxiety Is Not a Moral Failure

Before we go further, I want to be abundantly clear that while anxiety itself is not sin, it is for sure a signal. It’s a disintegrating impulse that exposes where our trust has frayed or where our perception of safety has been severed. Sometimes that severing is trauma-induced. Sometimes it’s unbelief. And often, it’s both. It is what happens when the mind races ahead of the moment and loses contact with grounded trust. It’s the body’s way of saying, “I don’t feel safe,” even when the threat isn’t real or present. But while anxiety may be human, it doesn’t have to be home.

Jesus Himself felt the weight of approaching death in the garden of Gethsemane. He sweated literal drops of blood. He groaned in agony. And He asked for the cup to pass. This, of course, was not weakness, nor was it failure. It was perfect, sinless humanity encountering real fear and choosing surrender instead.

But here’s what we must notice: Jesus wasn’t alone. Even in the garden, and even in the agony, the Father was near. It is the nearness of God that becomes the hinge for how we respond to the signal of anxiety.

As such, when Paul says “do not be anxious,” he is not instructing believers to numb their emotions, detach from their circumstances, or pretend life doesn’t hurt. He’s inviting us to recalibrate the affections of our hearts. And that recalibration begins with a theological claim far deeper than a surface-level command. It begins with presence.

What It Feels Like to Be Inside the Battle

If you’re in it right now, you already know the symptoms. The shallow breathing. The racing heart. The inability to sit still or make simple decisions. The voice in your head that says, “You’re not safe. You’re not in control. You can’t fix this. Something terrible is about to happen.” And when you try to pray, your thoughts scatter in a thousand directions. When you try to read the Word, it feels flat. And when you try to sleep, your chest tightens, and your breath won’t settle. In this place, you know as well as I that you’re not trying to be dramatic. You’re just trying to survive.

If that’s where you are right now, this Word is for you, not as a platitude, but as the sure and steadfast anchor of your soul. You don’t need a cliché. Instead, you need the assurance that you are not alone in the storm.

If this work is helping you heal what’s holding you back and walk in wholeness, you can invest in the mission here.

Verse Five Is the Precedent

Let’s hop back into the Word and read the context of Paul’s words:

“Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” (Philippians 4:5-6, ESV, emphasis mine)

The grammatical structure of this passage is not a string of disconnected moral principles. It’s a logical flow of thought. Within, Paul is building an argument. The nearness of the Lord is not a random insertion. Rather, it is the precedent upon which the next sentence hangs.

In Greek, the phrase ho Kyrios engys (ὁ Κύριος ἐγγύς) is terse and thunderous. It literally translates, “The Lord is near.” This could mean temporally (“the Lord is returning soon”) or spatially (“the Lord is close to you”). In Pauline thought, both definitions are often in view simultaneously. But here, context suggests Paul is pointing not merely to theological proximity, but to the deeply personal nearness of the risen Christ in which His Spirit indwells you and His presence surrounds you.

Therefore, Paul isn’t throwing a grenade of impossible expectations into the hearts of weary believers. On the contrary, he’s making a strikingly pastoral point that if the Lord is near, then the peace of God is accessible. But if we forget (or ignore) that He is near, the battle becomes impossible to win. The point is that we don’t need peace as a concept. We need the Person Who is called the Prince of Peace to declare peace amid every storm we face in life.

Fighting Alone Is a Losing Game

Tell someone in the throes of a panic attack to “be anxious for nothing,” and their response won’t be pleasant. Tell that to a mother waiting on biopsy results, and the verse might sound cruel. Unless it is read through the lens of the precedent.

Here’s what I mean: You cannot obey verse six until you believe verse five. The Lord is at hand. Most of us read Paul’s words as a test of our spiritual performance. But what if they are a call to surrender our self-reliance? What if Paul is saying: “When the Lord is truly your anchor, anxiety loses its power, not because you’ve become stronger, but because you’ve stopped fighting alone”?

That’s why when we’re in a storm, we don’t need to master coping skills. We need to remember Who’s in the room with us.

The Boat and the Storm

Do you remember the moment in Mark 4 when the disciples were caught in a violent storm on the Sea of Galilee? The wind howled, the boat filled with water, panic took over, and Jesus was asleep in the stern. Look at the Text:

“But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’” (Mark 4:38, ESV)

In this scene, the disciples mistook Jesus’ stillness for indifference. But here’s what we must see: the presence of Jesus was the solution before the storm even began. If they had believed that the Lord was at hand, panic would not have ruled them when the storm arose.

And frankly, the same is true for us. When anxiety crashes over the edges of our lives, our first instinct is often to cry out in fear and to spiral into self-protection or even control. But if we would pause and whisper, “The Lord is at hand,” our footing might be restored.

I’m Not Writing This from the Other Side

Now, just to peek behind the curtain, I want to share with you that I’m not writing this from a mountaintop. I’m writing this in real time, from the valley. Anxiety isn’t a fading memory for me; it’s a current experience. There are moments I still wake up and wonder if the bottom is about to fall out (that’s a pretty normal response to repeated trauma).

There are nights I have to say, “The Lord is at hand,” not because I feel it, but because it’s the only thing I know to be true. So, for me, this isn’t theory. This isn’t clean and tidy theology from someone who’s never been punched in the gut. This is my fight song. And if it helps you find air again, then it’s worth the cost. That’s why I want to take you deeper into understanding what’s happening from a neuroscientific perspective.

The Role of Attention

From the view of neuroscience, what we give our attention to, we amplify. Hebb’s axiom basically states that “neurons that fire together, wire together.” In other words, the more we ruminate on potential threats, the more the amygdala—the brain’s fear center—takes over, thus hijacking logic and reason. And the prefrontal cortex, the seat of executive function and calm decision-making, goes offline.

But when we become aware of safety and fix our attention on grounded truth, the body begins to settle. In doing so, we more aptly discern the voice of the Lord. The presence of Jesus reorients the nervous system and ushers in real peace. Not fabricated tranquility, but embodied shalom.

Paul’s words align perfectly with this truth. He tells us not to be anxious, then instructs us to pray, to give thanks, to present our requests before God. Why? Because gratitude re-engages trust and because prayer recenters attention on Who is present. And perhaps most importantly, because the act of lifting our eyes is what trains our souls to remember that the Lord is not far.

The Nearness of God Has Always Been the Point

The presence of God has never been an accessory to the faith. Rather, it is the very substance of covenant. From the Garden to the Tabernacle, from the fire on Sinai to the still small voice that met Elijah in the cave, the nearness of God has always marked the people of God. When God delivered Israel from Egypt, His promise wasn’t just freedom; it was Himself. “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest,” the Lord said. (Exodus 33:14, ESV)

And when Israel lost that presence because of rebellion, exile followed, not just geographically, but spiritually. But then came Jesus as Emmanuel, God with us. And now, Paul echoes the crescendo of this story, writing, “The Lord is at hand,” which is the fulfillment of everything God has ever promised.

Peace Doesn’t Precede Presence, It Proceeds From It

We often want peace to show up so we can believe God is near. But Paul says it works the other way around. You have to start with presence. And from presence comes peace. Perhaps that’s why he wrote, “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7, ESV)

Peace does not emerge from a problem-free life. It does not come from controlling your outcomes or mastering your environment. It comes from anchoring your awareness to the reality that Christ is present, not in theory or in abstraction, but in the very moment of your storm. Moreover, it is certainly not a psychological state you chase, but rather, the overflow of the presence of the Lord in your life.

The Discipline of Recollection

This is why, in every storm of anxiety, your first move must be theological. You have to preach to your own soul. You must remember the past faithfulness of the Lord in your life (your testimony) as a means by which you recalibrate the affections of your heart on a superior reality. This is what David did in Psalm 42:5. Attend to his words: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God...” David didn’t scold himself for being anxious. He redirected the current and chose to refocus.

Of course, the same is true for us. If we wait for the feeling of peace before we shift our mindset, we will be enslaved to our emotional state forever. But if we begin with presence, and if we start with the phrase “The Lord is at hand,” I’d like to propose that our emotions will eventually come under the covering of that truth.

This, my friend, is the practice of peace. Not forcing stillness, but choosing remembrance.

Authority in the Storm

I’d like to offer one final observation for your consideration. In Mark 4, when the disciples panicked in the boat, they missed an opportunity, not only to trust Jesus but to participate in His authority. They had seen Him move. They had heard His words. But had they believed His authority truly covered them, one of them might have stood in confidence that He was enough.

We often do the same. We cry out, “Jesus, fix this,” while forgetting that His presence gives us access to His authority. And so, when anxiety surges, the question is not whether the storm will come. It’s whether you will remember that the One who calms storms is already in your boat. And if He is, then you can stand in confidence and speak peace over your own soul.

Let This Sink Deep

Even recently, I’ve been captured afresh by the phrase from Philippians, “The Lord is at hand.” It is, I believe, the linchpin. It’s the reason verse six is even possible. If the Lord is not at hand, then you should be anxious. If the Lord is distant, then peace is a delusion. But if the Lord is near, then you are not alone in the storm. And the wind and waves do not get the final word. You were never commanded to manufacture peace, my friend. Rather, you were invited to remember Who holds it.

When You Can’t Think Straight, Start Here

If you’re in the fog and nothing’s working, I want you to go here:

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want… Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” (Psalm 23:1, 4, ESV)

You don’t need a perfect prayer. You don’t need 45 minutes of clarity. You just need one phrase to anchor you when the tide rises: “The Lord is at hand.”

Pray this, even if it’s a whisper:

Father, I don’t feel safe. But You are here.
I can’t fix this. But You are near.
My mind is loud. But Your voice is stronger.
I believe. Help my unbelief.
You are at hand. I will not drown.

I rest in You, even right now. In Jesus’ name, amen.

As we land this plane, look at this verse from Revelation 21, verse 3. Scripture says, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people...”

From beginning to end, the story has not changed. The Lord is at hand.

One day, His nearness will no longer be veiled. There will be no more storms, no more fear, no more “do not be anxious” commands, because the presence we now hold by faith will be fully known by sight. But until that day, we hold fast to the anchor of the promise that He is here. So whisper it in the chaos. Preach it when the fear rises. Declare it when you cannot sleep.

The Lord is at hand.

If this work is helping you heal what’s holding you back and walk in wholeness, you can invest in the mission here.

For more, I invite you to check out my book, Healing What You Can’t Erase, and listen to my weekly podcast, Win Today: Your Roadmap to Wholeness.