The Business Anxiety You Keep Ignoring and the Psalm That Finally Addressed It

One of our clients acted a little shrewd recently. And honestly, I understand why.

Every business since the pandemic has been in survival mode, constantly looking for ways to protect their margins. In that same pursuit, this client found a way to cut a few months of payment while still receiving the full benefit of the work already done.

It was clever.

But it revealed something in me I wasn't expecting.

Anxiety.

My mind, which is usually alive with possibilities and ideas, turned that same energy inward and started running through the what ifs. What if we lose this client? What if this doesn't work out? What if this is the beginning of something worse?

The possibility mindset that usually drives me forward had flipped into a generator of dread.

THE LOW HUM UNDERNEATH EVERYTHING

What I normally do with that kind of anxiety is ignore it. Distract myself. Move on.

But the anxiety never actually leaves.

It just sits at the back of my thoughts through the rest of the day, like a low hum underneath everything. Something unaddressed. Something undone. Quietly demanding my attention.

I didn't even realize how habitual this had become. It was subtle enough to go completely unnoticed.

But this morning, I stopped.

I also noticed something else. One of my usual ways of managing that anxiety is to talk to my wife about it. But she is not a business-minded person, and I was placing a weight on her that she was never designed to carry.

That is not her cup to drink. That is not her part to play.

And yet I kept handing it to her, expecting her to hold something she simply does not have the tools for. That was unfair to her. And it wasn't actually helping me either.

So this morning I said, this is God's business. I am the steward. He is the owner.

And I am going to bring this to him.

GOD LED ME TO PSALM 127:2

It is in vain for you to rise early, to retire late, to eat the bread of anxious labors, for he gives blessings to his beloved even in his sleep.

We talk a lot about passive income as money working while you sleep. But this verse goes much further.

It says God is working while you sleep. God is giving blessings while you sleep.

That is a completely different foundation to build a business on. That is not striving. That is not grasping.

That is rest as a form of trust.

THE GARDEN OR THE TOWER

This is the garden where work finds its true meaning. We were made to work in the garden of the Lord, not to build a tower of Babel.

The tower of Babel was never really about ambition. It was about insecurity. It was a monument to human fragility, our need to secure ourselves by our own hands.

And when I look honestly at my anxious striving, I see the same thing.

So this morning I said to my own hands, you are not my provider.

God is my provider.

THE PRAYER I WANT TO CARRY

And I prayed something I want to carry into every week of building this business.

Lord, forgive me for the times I have looked for human answers when I should have turned to you. Forgive me for burdening others with what only you can hold. Help me to embrace the vulnerability that is available in the cross. Not the false security of what I can see and control, but the real security of trusting you with what I cannot. You ordain the steps of the righteous. Let me walk in that, one step at a time.

The cross is not a symbol of defeat.

It is the place where striving ends and trust begins.

And for those of us building something, it is the most freeing place we can return to every single morning.