We live in an anxious culture. Worry and anxiety have always been part of life, but it seems like our culture is more fearful, more uncertain, than in the past. Thankfully, the Bible (and thus God) has a lot to say about worry. It really does. A particular section has struck me recently. The end of Psalm 139 says this (from the ESV): Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

Now, at first glance, these verses don’t seem to have much to do with worry or anxiety. But other translations give some help here. The New American Standard has it as “Put me to the test and know my anxious thoughts.” You could translate the original Hebrew word here as “cares”: Try me and know my cares. King David, the writer of this psalm, is asking God to show him the fears and worries and cares and anxious thoughts that are in his heart.

And notice that David asks God to “put him to the test” or to “try” him. Could it be that David is asking God to test him, to give him a trial? David wants to know the anxious thoughts that are in his heart, and he is willing to go through a God-ordained test or trial in order to find out. “O Lord, let me see the worries and anxieties in my heart, and do whatever it takes for me to see them, and to see them for all that they are.” You see, sometimes it takes hardship, even one that is designed by God himself, to discover the deeper issues of our heart.

But notice this also. David asks God to “see if there be any grievous way” in him. Another way to translate the word for grievous is “painful” or “hurtful”, or better yet “harmful”. The old King James Version uses the word “wicked”: “See if there be any wicked way in me.” David is asking God to determine if there is anything in him that is harmful to him, anything that could bring grief to his soul, anything that is evil or wicked. So, it seems that David is saying to us that worry and anxious thoughts are harmful to us, even evil or wicked, that they are the “way of pain” as one translation puts it.

We need to listen to that. Worry and anxiety are the way of pain. They are harmful to our soul. They are grievous, severe, and hurtful to us. They are even evil and wicked. What that means is this. Worry and anxiety are not neutral. They are not simply a result of our circumstances. Worry and anxiety are not passive; they don’t happen to us. We actively choose to be worried and anxious, and God says that is harmful to our soul. Worry and anxious thoughts are wicked.

Now, why would God call them wicked or harmful or grievous? Here’s why. Worry and anxiety are signs that we don’t trust God, that we don’t believe that he is good and that he can be trusted. They show a troubled, unsettled soul, rather than a restful, trusting soul. You see, God knows how good he is, how trustworthy he is, how wonderful and beautiful he is. God is all-sufficient and all-satisfying, and when we don’t live like that is true—and worry and anxious thoughts are the evidence that we don’t—then it is harmful to our soul, and even wicked. Worry and anxiety denigrates the character of God, and he won’t let his children do that. It is harmful and grievous. It is the way of pain.

This is pretty heavy. But the psalm ends on a high note. In response to asking God to show him his grievous, wicked, harmful worries and anxious thoughts, he asks God to lead him in the everlasting way. You could paraphrase it like this: Show me the harmful way, the way of pain, that I am pursuing in my worries and anxiety, and instead lead me down the everlasting, eternal, righteous way that comes when I trust in you, in your character and your promises.