How to Quiet Your Anxious Soul

1 Thessalonians 4:11 says “make it your ambition to lead a quiet life.” You may be questioning, is a quiet life even possible in our overworked and overwhelmed culture? It sure is! In today’s video, I’m sharing 3 powerful ways we can calm and quiet our souls no matter how busy life gets. Enjoy!

An anxious soul can affect every area of your life. Your thoughts can race from one negative scenario to another. Your heart will be overwhelmed with worry. Your spirit can be completely undone and unraveled. It’s the heaviness of our souls that a nap can’t cure. It’s then you need to quiet your soul. How?  Today, I want to chat about 3 powerful ways we can calm and quiet our anxious souls.

1. Release Control and Accept Surrender

The first step to quieting your soul is to release control. We have to let go of trying to work everything out on our own. Just because we feel like everything is up to us, doesn’t mean it is. The truth is we serve a sovereign God who is in control of everything. He's a God of peace and order. Instead of trying to control situations that we don’t have control over, we need to surrender the matter to God. That doesn’t mean that you ignore your challenges or act like they don’t exist. This surrender is not giving up, but it’s letting go so that God can do what only He can do. It’s being content with where you are and what you have instead of running an endless race for more.

The root of an anxious soul is lack of control. But we don’t have to be in control to quiet our souls when we know that the matter is in God’s control. The truth is, He’s so good He doesn’t need our help. He’s got this.

When we decide to trust that God is good at being in control, anxiety is dismantled if its power over us and our souls can rest.

When I find my soul anxious, I say this to myself and encourage you to do the same: “I can rest my soul, because God is in control.”

2. Release Hurry and Accept a Focus on God  

can rest my soul, because God is in control.”

2. Release Hurry and Accept a Focus on God  

When we rush through life, we become easily distracted by what we need to get done. We can find ourselves numb to what’s going on in our lives by just going through the motions. Although we can ignore our souls' need for stillness by distracting ourselves with busy work, we still need the rest and restoration that a quiet soul gives. Eventually, a rushed life will catch up to us and we’ll find ourselves burnt out. Instead of aimlessly moving to distract ourselves, we need to focus on God. Isaiah 26:3 says:

If we want to quiet our souls, we need what I call staying power. This is the ability not to allow every anxious thought to move us so we’re always running around but getting nowhere. As we focus on God, we don’t have to rush. We can be still as we trust Him. This is important but we cannot sustain a hurried lifestyle.  

This is why in Psalm 23 we read that God brings David to still waters to restore His soul. He says:

David needed to be still to receive the restoration God wanted to give Him. The same is true for us. God is not going to run us down. We need to be led to quiet or desolate places like Jesus often was in the Gospels to meet with God and receive His restoration. I often say, “God does not rush our souls; He restores our souls.” Frequently, we think that more and faster is better. But God honors humility, small beginnings, and acquiring little by little. The thought that we have to do the most does not come from God, but the world. God’s message is quite the opposite actually. He wants us to release busyness and rush so we can live a life where our soul has the opportunity to receive His rest. 

3. Release Overthinking and Accept Praying 

One important way for us to focus on God is to pray to God. However, what we find ourselves doing often is overthinking which is not the same as prayer. Overthinking is meditation on the same issue over and over again from all directions. We’re trying to figure it out and solve the issue in our heads. The problem arises when we can solve the issue because it’s something we need to give to God and not try to work out on our own. Our thoughts then simply become holding spaces for scenarios and imaginations that may or may not happen that make us more anxious. But the Bible has a cure for this worried thought cycle: prayer. Philippians 4:6 says:

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” (‭‭Philippians‬ ‭4:6‬ ‭ESV‬‬)

We have options. We can worry which will keep our souls on high alert. Or we can pray, allowing our souls to quiet as we trust God for what we need.

Through surrender, focus on God, and prayer we have all the necessary tools we need to quiet our souls if we choose to use them.

Now I’d love to hear from you. What do you need to release and accept in this season of your life to quiet your soul? Let’s encourage one another in the comments.

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Thank you so much for watching today and until next time, be beautiful, be blessed, and beloved.