Feeling stressed these days? Being the modern biblically-informed people that we are, we sometimes substitute the word stress for biblical words, such as fear and worry.

But if we are honest, fear and worry, and yes, anxiety, impacts all of us sooner or later and to one degree or another, because there is good reason to worry in this broken world where sin invades the people and places in our lives. Yes, it even invades us and produces in us an anxious heart.

And while we know we are to trust God rather than hold worry, anxiety, and fear inside us, how do we do that? What training is available to prepare us to deal with all the stress in our lives? The relationship problems, physical illness, family issues, political concerns, mask mandates, and a multitude of other issues that bear on our hearts and stress us out?

This little devotional book titled, A Small Book for the Anxious Heart: Meditations on Fear, Worry, and Trust by Edward Welch, points us to Christ and the Bible as the training ground where our hearts can learn to trust more, and worry and be afraid less.

One thing Welch suggests is to move through this process slowly. Don’t rush it. Don’t sit down and read this book in one evening; you will miss so much if you do.

This book is divided into 50 days and that gives you an idea of the pace you should take in working your way through it and in training your heart.

Each of the 50 days of reading is three or four pages long and takes three to five minutes. Each day will take you to at least one passage of Scripture, often a Psalm, where Welch helps us meditate on the truths revealed for us in God’s Word.

The slower pace of 50 days lets the truth soak in and take root day after day, which brings wisdom. In addition, each day’s reading concludes with two or three personal application questions that call for a contemplative and thoughtful response from the reader. This is key for making these daily lessons real in your life.

Here’s a brief excerpt from Day 7, titled simply: Manna.

“Worries can be born in the past, live in the future, and invade the present. They focus our attention on things over which we are relatively powerless, and they take our attention away from the mission that is right in front of us.

Stay in the present. Everyone who thinks about stress and worry suggests this. God’s words to you say something similar – they invite you back to the present - but they do so in a very personal way. . . .

“Today” is a skill that the Lord is quite keen to give his people. Like all skills, you will not master it immediately, but you can grow in it now.

Manna. God’s anxious people began their training very early. Picture yourself in the Sinai desert with no means of harvesting crops because you have just left four hundred years of Egyptian bondage and are on the move. You are concerned about tomorrow’s food, which is certainly a most primal and understandable worry.

Trust God for today rather than be distressed about tomorrow. Trust your Father for this one day. That’s the wisdom that the Father wanted to impart to his children and the education came through manna.”

Then Welch directs us to Exodus 16:4 to show us God is trustworthy for meeting our need today, and then takes us to the words of Christ in Matthew 6:34 as Jesus teaches us to seek his kingdom today and trust the Father for tomorrow.

This is just one small segment of one day of the 50 days of lessons I found helpful for me to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord and I think you will too. I highly recommend this little book.