I’m a Pastor. I Struggle with Anxiety.
Anxiety As Spotlight: Examining anxiety instead of suppressing it can reveal specific fears and areas requiring deeper trust in Jesus.
Practice Trust: Prayerful surrender may reduce anxiety’s grip, even when fear remains and immediate peace does not arrive.
Honest leadership: Pastors can lead credibly without pretending, especially when trusted relationships provide support for ongoing struggles.
What if the anxiety you've been trying to get rid of is attempting to show you something?
I don't ask that to minimize how hard anxiety is. I know how hard it is. For my entire adult life, I've wrestled with anxiety - but the last year has been record-setting. I had a monster anxiety attack, ended up in an ambulance, and spent a day in a hospital bed being monitored and tested.
It seems silly now, but lying in that hospital stretcher, I thought I might be dying.
I'm a pastor. I know what I'm supposed to believe about fear and trust and the sovereignty of God. Forcing myself to mentally embrace "the right things" didn't stop the anxiety. Learning to pay attention to the anxiety? That's changed things.
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First: You're Not Alone in This
Research from Duke Divinity School's Clergy Health Initiative found that depression rates among pastors run as high as 11.1% – close to double the national average of 5.5%. The same research identified stress as the single biggest predictor of both depression and anxiety in ministry settings.
A 2024 Pastoral Wellness Study commissioned by GuideStone Financial Resources found that more than 80% of pastors sometimes sacrifice their own wellbeing in ministry, with over half saying they sometimes sacrifice their family’s wellbeing too.
Barna's 2024 research found that while most pastors want to improve their mental health, one of the primary barriers is the fear that being honest about their struggles will cost them credibility with their congregation. That same research found that 18% of Protestant senior pastors had contemplated self-harm or suicide within the past year.
One of my first thoughts after my anxiety attack was: if people find out, will they still trust me?
The answer, I've come to believe, is that pastoral credibility is built more on honesty than on the appearance of invulnerability. But I understand why the fear is there. And I'm not going to pretend it's easy to push past it.
A Side Effect of Independence
Anxiety, in my experience, is almost always about the future. Something bad that might happen. Something I can't control. My family's health. My financial well-being. My church's future. And when I started looking honestly at my anxiety – not trying to make it stop, but actually examining what it was pointing to – I noticed a pattern.
Every anxiety, if I traced it far enough, ended at the same place: a spot in my life where I was trusting myself more than I was trusting God.
I don't mean that in a shallow way. I don't mean "just have more faith" as if that's a solution you can apply from the outside. I mean something more specific: anxiety seems to surface in precisely those areas where I'm operating with a hidden belief that I'm on my own. The outcome depends on me. "If I relax my grip for even a moment, something will break."
Anxiety, I've come to believe, is a side effect of independence from God.
When I hold that framing, it changes what I do with the feeling. Instead of fighting the anxiety, I treat it like a notification. I pray a specific question: God, what am I afraid of? What is this pointing to? Then I pay attention to where my mind goes.
Almost every time, something specific surfaces – a particular fear, a particular area of life I haven't actually surrendered. And when I bring it honestly before God, and choose to let Him hold it instead of me, the anxiety often loses its power.
Not always right away. But more reliably than anything else I've tried.
Anxiety is Painful. It's distracting. It's exhausting.
When anxiety is dominating my experience, it can pull your attention away from the people in front of you, away from your sermon, away from your family – at exactly the moments when they need you present.
Job said: "Though he slay me, yet will I follow."
That's not the sound of someone who's figured out how to be comfortable in suffering. That's the sound of someone choosing trust anyway, even when trust feels like the hardest possible thing. Even when the outcome looks uncertain. Even when the fear is still there.
I've noticed that an anxiety attack often loses its grip in the moments when I stop trying to defeat it and start submitting to God instead.
Not forcing peace. Not mustering enough spiritual energy to overcome the fear. Just saying, out loud or in my heart: "Jesus, whatever comes, I trust you with this."
You Don't Have to Pretend You're Not Struggling
You don't have to have figured out how to eliminate anxiety before you're allowed to lead. The pastors I've watched lead well over time are almost always the ones who've learned to be transparent about what they carry – not from the pulpit necessarily, but with the people close enough to walk with them.
When anxiety shows up, ask God what it's pointing to. Pay attention, and trust that the God who called you into ministry hasn't walked away from you in the middle of it.
He's been faithful so far.
He'll be faithful here too.