Why the spiral of anxious thoughts isn’t too much thinking, and how God leads us out of it

It’s 1:47 in the morning. The house is quiet, except for your husband’s CPAP, and your mind is running a full-scale production of a conversation that hasn’t happened yet. You’ve rehearsed what she’ll say, what you’ll say back, and the three clever comebacks you’ll probably never use. Then you switch reels and replay last Tuesday’s meeting, frame by frame, looking for the moment you said the wrong thing.

I’ll be the first to confess. I have won more arguments at two in the morning than I have ever won in daylight, and not one of them actually happened. If rehearsing imaginary conversations were an Olympic event, some of us would need broader shoulders to wear all the gold medals.

We have a name for this nowadays. We call it overthinking. People say it with a little shrug and a smile, almost like a personality quirk: “Oh, I’m just an overthinker.” It sounds harmless, maybe even a little impressive, as if we just have deep minds that can’t help but go deeper.

But if you’ve lived in that spiral, you know it isn’t harmless. It steals sleep. It steals joy. It distracts you from the people you love and keeps you stuck on the work God gave you to do today. So, let’s ask the question the Bible would have us ask: what is really going on when our thoughts won’t stop circling, and what does God say about it?

What overthinking really is

Here’s the hard truth, said as gently as I know how: most of what we call overthinking is an old problem wearing a new outfit. The Bible calls it worry, or anxiety. And Jesus speaks directly to it: “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matthew 6:34).

The New Testament word for worry carries the idea of being divided or pulled apart. That’s exactly how it feels, isn’t it? Your body is in the kitchen making coffee, but your mind is three weeks into a future that may never come. Jay Adams described worry as concern about a future you can’t know and can’t control, and that’s why it tears you up. You can’t do anything about tomorrow’s problem today, so all that energy just churns.

Now, before we proceed, we need to be careful and clear. Concern is not sin. Paul felt the daily pressure of his concern for the churches (2 Corinthians 11:28). Planning is not sin either; James simply tells us to plan with “If the Lord wills” on our lips (James 4:15). The problem comes when concern stops leading to prayer and action and starts going in circles. My wise friend David Breeden likes to say worry is like a rocking chair: it will give you something to do, but it will never get you anywhere.

You’re not overthinking. You’re underthinking.

One of the most helpful things I’ve read on this comes from a short ACBC article with a great title: “You’re Not Overthinking, You’re Underthinking.” The point is simple and convicting. The person stuck in the spiral isn’t thinking too much. They’re not thinking far enough. This is a helpful starting point, but I think the issue runs deeper.

When I lie awake running “what if” scenarios, I’m thinking about my problem, my reputation, my bank account, my kids, my plans. What I’m usually not doing is thinking all the way through to God. If I followed that thought to the end, I would arrive at who God is, what He has promised, and how faithful He has been before. And that road ends in worship, not panic.

That’s why Paul doesn’t tell the Philippians to stop thinking. He tells them what to think about: “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8). Notice the first word on the list. “What if” is not true yet. God is.

Follow the worry back to the treasure

Jesus begins His teaching on anxiety with the word “therefore” (Matthew 6:25). That little word points back to what He just said: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). Put those together, and you get a principle that has helped me more times than I can count: where your treasure is, there your anxiety will be also.

Tell me what you lie awake turning over, and you’ve told me what you’re tempted to treasure. Approval. Security. Control. Comfort. A child’s future. A smooth, uninterrupted life where nobody throws a rock in your pond. None of those are bad things. But when a good thing becomes a God-sized thing we can’t live without, our minds will guard it day and night. When the spiral starts, two questions are worth asking:

• • What am I afraid of losing?
  • And what would make me feel safe if I had it?

Why “just stop thinking about it” doesn’t work

If you’ve ever had someone tell you, “Just don’t worry about it,” you know how much that helps. About as much as telling a man with a sprained ankle to just walk normally.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones made this point decades ago. The world’s advice to an anxious person usually sounds like this: stop worrying, it may never happen, and worrying won’t change anything anyway. All three are true in their way, and none of them reach the heart. “It may never happen” is cold comfort when the whole problem is that it might. And trying to shove the thoughts out by willpower only pushes them underground, where they keep working.

Lloyd-Jones noticed something honest in Philippians 4. Paul says the peace of God will guard “your hearts and your minds.” Why mention hearts and minds? Because that’s where the trouble lives. Our hearts love, and love makes us vulnerable. Our imaginations run ahead of us. Our minds start building contingency plans for disasters that haven’t arrived. Paul knows we can’t simply flip a switch and turn that off.

There’s also a body involved. God made us whole people, and anxious thinking shows up physically: a racing heart, a knotted stomach, a sleepless night. That’s how He designed the body to get ready for danger. The trouble is that when we misread those feelings as danger, we get more afraid, which makes the feelings stronger, which makes us more afraid. Round and round it goes. If you’ve ever been afraid of being afraid, you know that loop well. Understanding it doesn’t fix it, but it does take away some of the mystery. Nothing strange is happening to you, and nothing is outside of God’s reach.

So the Bible doesn’t hand us a technique for emptying our heads. It gives us something better: a Person to turn our thoughts toward.

Five ways out of the spiral

Here are some practical steps, drawn from Scripture and wise counselors who have walked many people out of this pit. None of them are magic. All of them take practice. But God is faithful, and He uses ordinary means of grace to renew our minds.

1. Call it what it is

This may sound harsh, but it’s actually freeing. If overthinking is just a quirk of my personality, I’m stuck with it. If it’s worry, then Jesus died for it, the Holy Spirit fights against it, and there is real hope for change. “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). Confessing anxious unbelief isn’t beating yourself up. It’s agreeing with God so you can receive His mercy. And remember, Jesus called it “little faith,” not no faith (Matthew 6:30). He is patient with weak believers.

2. Stop talking to yourself and start talking to God

When I mull over a problem for the fortieth time, I’m really holding a meeting with myself, and it’s never a very productive meeting. Paul offers a better conversation: “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).

Lloyd-Jones points out the order. Start with worship: remember who you’re talking to before you start telling Him what’s wrong. Then bring the specific request. Then give thanks, on purpose, even if you have to dig for reasons. You can always thank Him for the cross. Every time an anxious thought shows up, let it become a cue to pray. The enemy meant to drag you down with that thought. Turn it into a doorbell that calls you into God’s presence.

3. Take your thoughts to court

Paul says we “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). That means your thoughts don’t get to run the house unsupervised. When a “what if” knocks, ask it a question: Is this true? Is it true about God? Is it true about His care for me?

One simple tool I love comes from Lucy Ann Moll’s little book Help! I Get Panic Attacks. Fill in the blanks:

Even though ________, God ________. This means ________. I will ________.

For example: Even though I’m afraid of what the doctor will say, God is sovereign and good. This means nothing in that report will surprise Him, and I am still His child. I will pray, go to the appointment, and trust Him with the results.

Write a few of those down. Pair your most common fears with a verse or two and memorize them. Psalm 56:3 is a great place to start: “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.”

4. Live in today

Jesus says each day has enough trouble of its own (Matthew 6:34). God gives grace the way He gave manna: daily. His mercies “are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:23), meaning He doesn’t give you tomorrow’s grace today. No wonder our bank account feels overdrawn when we try to pay next month’s bills on this week’s paycheck.

Jay Adams gave a worried believer three questions to write down whenever the spiral started:

1. What is my problem?
2. What does God want me to do about it?
3. When, where, and how should I begin?

Then get up and do the next thing. Adams talked about a man so overwhelmed by a huge project that he walked out of the office. The solution wasn’t to look at the whole forest. It was to say, “By God’s grace, three trees are coming down today.” Brooding is thinking without acting. Faith thinks, prays, and then picks up the axe.

If you’re stuck on a past hurt, try this: give yourself two minutes to think about it honestly, close those two minutes in prayer, leaving it in God’s hands, and then turn to a present responsibility.

5. Turn your eyes outward

Here’s one most of us would never guess. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). Fear asks, “What will happen to me?” Love asks, “How can I help you?” Fear protects itself. Love gives itself away.

Overcoming anxious thinking isn’t only about getting the bad thoughts out. It’s about shifting our attention from ourselves to God and the people He’s put around us. So, make a short list of loving actions for this week: a card for a widow, a meal for a tired young mom, a call to that friend you’ve been meaning to check on. You’ll be amazed how hard it is to rehearse imaginary arguments while you’re busy loving real people.

And don’t do this alone. The spiral grows in isolation. Tell a trusted friend, a pastor, or a biblical counselor what’s going on, and let the body of Christ carry some of the weight with you. One more practical note: we are embodied souls. Sleep, exercise, less caffeine, and time outside won’t save your soul, but they are good stewardship of the body God gave you. And if anxiety is showing up in strong physical ways, see your doctor to rule out a medical cause.

The peace that stands guard

I love the promise at the end of Philippians 4:7: “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Notice what Paul doesn’t promise. He doesn’t say the thing you fear will never happen. He doesn’t promise that every hard conversation will go your way or that the test results will come back clean. He promises something better. God’s peace will stand guard over your heart and mind like a soldier on the wall, keeping the swirling thoughts outside while you rest inside.

And that peace is found “in Christ Jesus.” If God did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, will He not also take care of whatever is keeping you up tonight (Romans 8:32)? The God who handled your greatest problem, your sin, at the cross is not going to be stumped by your Tuesday meeting.

So the next time it’s 2 a.m. and the reel starts rolling, don’t just try harder to stop thinking. Think further. Think all the way to the God who never sleeps, so you can. As Isaiah put it, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you” (Isaiah 26:3).

The overthinker isn’t thinking too much about life. He just hasn’t thought enough about God yet. And by His grace, we can all grow in that, one thought, one prayer, and one day at a time.

A word about the body

One last thing before you close this article. Because God made us body and soul together, it’s wise to make sure nothing physical is feeding the fire before we assume the problem is only spiritual. Some medical conditions can produce or intensify anxious feelings: an overactive thyroid (hyperthyroidism) or parathyroid problems, heart rhythm irregularities, high blood pressure or a blood pressure spike, anemia, asthma and other breathing problems, adrenal or other hormone-related disorders, the hormonal shifts of pregnancy, postpartum, or perimenopause, and even a past head injury. Side effects from medications, too much caffeine or other stimulants, and ongoing sleep loss can do it too. So if your worry comes with a racing heart, shortness of breath, dizziness, chest pain, or other strong physical symptoms, please see your doctor and get checked out. That isn’t a lack of faith. It’s good stewardship of the body God gave you. And if the doctor gives you a clean bill of health, that’s good news too, because it means you can bring the spiral to the Lord with confidence that He has exactly what you need.

If you or someone you love is struggling with overthinking and you would like to talk with someone, the doors of Church on the Way are open. You do not have to carry it alone.