Help from God

Anxiety has become an unwelcome companion for many, creeping into everyday life with relentless persistence.

The most striking revelation is the pervasive nature of worry among younger Americans. An overwhelming 62% of Gen Z and millennial respondents report feeling constantly anxious, compared to 38% of older generations. On average, people spend two hours and 18 minutes each day caught in the grip of worrisome thoughts. This is a significant chunk of time that could otherwise fuel productivity, creativity, or personal growth.

The timing of these worry periods reveals interesting patterns. A third of respondents find themselves most anxious when alone. 30% are plagued by worries as they prepare to fall asleep. Another 17% are tormented by anxious thoughts upon waking. 12% experience peak worry while getting ready for bed.

When it comes to specific concerns:

53% of respondents cite money as their primary source of anxiety.
42% worry about their loved ones.
42% fret about pending tasks and to-do lists.
37% have health concerns
22% have sleep anxiety (22%),
19% are concerned by political uncertainties

For parents, the concerns extend far beyond personal anxieties. 77% express profound worry about the world their children are inheriting, with 34% specifically calling out climate change as a significant concern.

One parent’s raw emotion captures this generational anxiety: “Honestly, I worry that there won’t be a world for my child to grow up in.”

Possible Preaching Angle:
How many minutes a day do you spend worrying? Instead, turn your anxieties over to the Lord and pray as David did “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts…and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psa. 139:23). Jesus knows your tendency to worry and he said, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life… your heavenly Father knows what you need.” (Matt. 6:25-34)

In a culture that feels increasingly disconnected, here’s something surprisingly encouraging: Nearly half of Americans still pray every single day.

According to new data from Pew Research, 44% of U.S. adults say they pray at least once a day, and another 23% say they pray weekly or a few times a month. That means two-thirds of the country still turns to prayer with some regularity—a practice that remains deeply embedded in American life.

Prayer habits also vary by race, gender, and age. Black Americans are the most likely to pray daily (64%), while women are more likely than men (50% vs. 37%). Older adults continue to lead the way in daily prayer, while younger generations are less consistent—but still showing up.

For many Americans, prayer isn’t just a habit—it’s a lifeline.

As pastor and theologian Tim Keller once wrote, “Prayer is the way to experience a powerful confidence that God is handling our lives well, that our bad things will turn out for good, our good things cannot be taken from us, and the best things are yet to come.”

In a time when faith trends often point to decline, this data is a reminder that spiritual rhythms haven’t disappeared—they’re just shifting.

Every 13- or 17-years a remarkable event of nature happens - cicadas emerge from more than a decade underground. How do they keep track of time? This is one of the “seven biological wonders of the world,” according to John Cooley, a biologist at the University of Connecticut.

“Seventeen [years] is just an inordinately long time to keep track of anything,” adds John Lill, an insect ecologist at George Washington University. “I can’t keep track of five years let alone 17, myself—so how an insect does it is pretty remarkable.”

During their long stint underground, the insects sip at xylem sap, the nutrient-poor but water-rich liquid that moves from a tree’s root tips up to its canopy. Each year as a tree buds and blossoms, its xylem is briefly richer in amino acids, leading one team of researchers to call it “spring elixir.” Cicadas appear to count each flush of spring elixir.

Another researcher said, “We know that’s what they count. Where they’re putting their little chalk marks on the wall, we don’t know. We really don’t understand how they’re keeping track of it.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

God’s timetable is even more mysterious. James tells us to “be patient until the coming of the Lord” (Jam. 5:7) Peter adds, “A day with the Lord is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promises” (2 Pet 3:8-9). God’s timetable is higher than ours so we must trust in Him and his perfect timing.

Hidden acoustic wonders called “whispering walls” have awed listeners since ancient times. The field of “archaeo-acoustics” studies the way sound and archaeological sites interact. Cathedrals and capital domes have been noted for the way they capture and amplify sound. A whispering gallery is usually a circular, hemispherical, or elliptical enclosure, often beneath a dome or a vault, in which whispers can be heard clearly in other parts of the gallery.

A whispering gallery allows whispered communication from one part of the internal side of the circumference to another specific part. The sound is carried by waves, known as whispering-gallery waves, that travel around the circumference clinging to the walls. This effect has been discovered in the whispering gallery of St Paul's Cathedral in London, the Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol, and Grand Central Station in New York, among others.

When a visitor stands at one focus the sound waves carry the words so that others will be able to hear the whispers from the opposite side of the gallery. Even when the room is filled with many people talking, the whisper can be heard, but only by standing in exactly the right location, others in the room won’t hear the whisper at all.

Possible Preaching Angle:

It is possible to hear the slightest whisper spoken in a massive room filled with people, but only when you stand in just the right place. In the same way, in a noisy, bustling world, it is possible to hear the “whisper” of God (1 Kings 19:12), but only if we are standing in the right place of obedience, readiness, and quiet waiting.

For parents of young children, few things are as precious as a good night’s sleep—both for their child and for themselves. Yet many parents struggle with getting their little ones to bed and ensuring they get the rest they need.

A poll from the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital sheds light on the sleep habits and challenges of children aged one to six years. Perhaps of greatest concern is that nearly one in four young kids struggle with anxiety at bedtime.

The poll, which surveyed a national sample of parents with kids under seven, found that the vast majority (90%) have a bedtime routine for their child. These routines often include:

Brushing teeth (90%)

Reading bedtime stories (67%)

Taking a bath (54%)

Praying (31%)

Talking about their day (23%)

But bedtime struggles are common, with 27% of parents describing the process of getting their child to bed as difficult. The poll identified that 23% of children were worried or anxious at bedtime and had trouble falling asleep. Once asleep, some children:

Wake up upset or crying (36%)

Move to their parents’ bed (43%)

Insist that a parent sleep in their room (31%)

Americans' trust in government has hit an all-time low. But that lack of trust hasn't always been a part of the American experience. A chart published by the Pew Research Center shows the dramatic decline.

For example, in 1964, 77% of Americans said they trusted the government. Then the collapse began during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, which overlapped with the Vietnam War. The 1970s—thanks to Vietnam and Watergate—sped up the loss of faith in the government (62%).

After a slight resurgence during the 1980s, the trend line for the past few decades is quite clear. With the exception of relatively brief spikes that overlap with the first Gulf War and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the number of people who trust the government has been steadily declining.

By 2024, only 22% of people said they trusted by government.

The collapse of our collective trust in the government—and, by extension, its ability or willingness to help solve problems—has massive reverberations for politicians. They are considered less-than-honest brokers by large numbers of the American public, meaning that everything they say or do is viewed with suspicion. Sadly, this lack of trust is the new normal.

Possible Preaching Angles:

(1) God is the source of our help, hope, and trust. (2) Our need to pray for our government and to be salt and light in our community.

Editor’s Note: You can view all 66 years of the survey results here.

Imagine an old European city with narrow cobbled streets and storefronts as old as the city itself. One of those weathered storefronts has a sign hanging over the door: The Mercy Shop. There's no lock on the door because it's never closed. There's no cash register because mercy is free.

When you ask for mercy, the Owner of the shop takes your measurements, then disap­pears into the back. Good news—he's got your size! Mercy is never out of stock, never out of style.

As you walk out the door, the Owner of the Mercy Shop smiles, “Thanks for coming!” With a wink, he says, “I’ll see you tomorrow!”

Possible Preaching Angle:

The writer of Lamentations said that God's mercies are "new every morning" (Lam. 3:23). The Hebrew word for "new" is hadas . It doesn't just mean "new" as in "again and again," which would be amazing in and of itself. It means "new" as in "different." It means "never experienced before." Today's mercy is different from yesterday's mercy! Like snowflakes, God's mercy never crystallizes the same way twice. Every act of mercy is unique.

The world began a weekly group therapy session with Frazier Crane thirty years ago. This spin-off character from Cheers played by Kelsey Grammer, emerged as an iconic counselor who masterfully blended humor and wisdom. While Grammer is an actor by trade, his years playing a therapist has given him lasting insights into the human psyche.

In an interview with The Guardian, Grammer was asked how he felt attitudes towards therapy has changed evolved over the last 30 years. After wrestling with the question for a few moments, he concluded with this:

God is probably the best therapist, without wanting to get on too big of a preachy soapbox. I just think if you have faith, you’re probably one step ahead of the storm of everyday life today. There is insanity everywhere. It’s a global phenomenon. It seems to be cooked into our governments. It’s a difficult road to navigate on your own.

A recent survey asked Americans what they pray for and where do they pray? The replies showed that they pray for:

Families (51%)

Friends (41%)

Spouses (31%)

They pray before:

Job interviews (20%)

Exams (18%)

Sporting events (12%)

But in this survey sample of nearly 2,000 Americans found that few pray in church. The most common places people pray in the United States:

Work 24%

Nature 26%

Church 28%

Car 37%

Bedroom 51%

Air travelers heading east for the holiday season had another thing to be thankful for ... the jet stream. According to CNN meteorologist Sara Tonks, the jet stream, the air current about five miles above the earth’s surface, is stronger than usual. She attributes the difference to a burst of cold air, which has increased the difference in temperature between the colder United States and the warmer Atlantic Ocean. “This increase in the temperature gradient is amplifying the speed of the jet stream, which is driven by temperature differences.”

The jet stream has always been a boon to travelers heading west-to-east, but its recent trend has allowed planes to travel at speeds approaching the speed of sound, estimated at about 761 mph.

It's important to note that these planes don’t actually break the sound barrier, because of the differences between airspeed (the speed of something traveling through air, which itself is also moving) and groundspeed (the speed of an object relative to a fixed point on the ground).

Still, these recent flights have resulted in several impressive flight times. For example, an American Airlines flight from JFK in New York to Heathrow in London touched down almost an hour early.

In 2019, a Virgin Atlantic plane from Los Angeles to London achieved a speed of 801 mph while flying over the state of Pennsylvania. Afterward, Virgin founder Richard Branson described it as flying “faster than any other commercial non-supersonic plane in history.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Like a runner or cyclist with the wind at their back, the Spirit of God can refresh us, give us energy, and multiply the efficacy of our work so that through him we can accomplish so much more than we could on our own.

A woman in Sunderland, England nearly leapt to her death from in 2018 from Wearmouth Bridge, very well known as a place where people come to end their lives. She now returns to that site regularly to post messages encouraging others who are having a rough time to get help.

Paige Hunter, now 21, says that when she was a teenager suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, she found herself standing at the edge of the bridge, thinking about ending it all. That’s when a pair of Good Samaritans approached Hunter, telling her “You are worth so much more than this.”

That not only stopped her from jumping, but changed her life. The next day, Hunter wrote those eight words that were told to her on several pieces of paper and posted them all over the bridge where she had her epiphany. That’s where her campaign, Notes of Hope, began.

Since then, Hunter said she’s left over 1,000 laminated, handwritten messages on the Wearmouth Bridge encouraging others struggling with mental health issues to seek help. She’s received lots of feedback and thinks she’s saved dozens of lives through her efforts—and even improved her own. Hunter said, “It’s definitely therapeutic for me to write these messages.”

25-year-old Callum Doggrell said his life was saved by Hunter’s efforts. “I was going through a really rough patch, and I was at a point in my life where I didn’t want to be here anymore,” he said. That was in early 2019. He thought about his one-year-old son and other loved ones and decided to push past his trouble and carry on. He and Hunter are now in contact.

In a recent segment on NPR’s Morning Edition, Rev. Cameron Partridge shared about an idea he developed during his years as a college chaplain. "You know, you've got the end of the semester. You've got finals. Preparation to leave for home. So, Advent barely got to be observed."

Traditionally, the season of Advent is observed in the Christian liturgical calendar during the four weeks preceding Christmas. But Partridge decided to start it a few weeks sooner, in order to draw attention to the necessary, urgent themes of the season. He says the shift gave students "an opportunity to actually really be present together and to observe it together, which could be grounding in a time of great intensity."

And this seems of upmost importance these days, especially given the current extended conflict in the Holy Land. "We can't pretend that everything is fine," he says. "There is tumult in the world, and it is real and it is hard and it is deeply affecting people."

The current move to begin marking the season earlier began in 2005, when the Rev. William Petersen got together a group of clergy, professors, and church musicians who formed something that came to be called the Advent Project.

Petersen believes that Advent for Christians is as much about hope for the Second Coming of Jesus—sometimes called the Second Advent—that will usher in the reign of God as much as it is about commemorating the first coming of God in the person of Jesus in first-century Palestine.

Petersen says that tension is where we all reside, which is why Advent is what we need. "In its dwelling in the already and the not-yet, Advent can ground and strengthen us in all of that uncertainty and help give us an ability to connect."

Possible Preaching Angle:

The good news is not just that God came to the earth as a baby, but that by doing so, he signaled hope for his Second Advent in which the heartache, injustice, and death of our fallen world will be overcome by goodness, truth, and life.

Todd Brewer writes in an edition of Mockingbird:

Happy Holidays! Happy Advent! Happy Elf on the Shelf? Ha, there’s nothing happy about that Elf reporting every misdeed back to the big man at the north pole. This week, my daughter told me that her class’s elf on the shelf carries a Bluetooth Santa Cam, as if to make the Big Brother surveillance even more explicit. Perhaps it’s all fun and games … but the all-seeing Santa of the holidays can feel eerily similar to the Eye of Sauron.

Writing in Christianity Today, Russell Moore contrasts the watchful eye of the Elf-on-the-Shelf with that of God:

What stands out … is how strikingly more comprehensive the seeing of the God of the Bible is. Hagar … encounters God in the wilderness. “She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me,’” (Gen. 16:13). This is a woman who is considered dispensable, no longer useful, and thus invisible to her community. But God sees her. She is not alone in the cosmos. His eye is on the sparrow, and his eye is on her.

Perhaps that’s why one of the most remarkable things about Jesus in his encounters with people … is his seeing them as they are, such as the private character of Nathanael: “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you” (John 1:48). After Jesus’ conversation with the woman at the well, she tells her fellow villagers, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” (John 4:29).

This is not an Elf-on-the-Shelf religion; this is good news of great joy.

President Abraham Lincoln’s biographer, Jon Meacham argues that Lincoln's version of Christian faith was complicated. But Meacham also adds, “There is no doubt, however, that the Lincoln of the White House years became more religiously inclined, attending services with some regularity and meeting with ministers and congregants.” Lincoln became more convinced of the sovereign purposes of a God who oversees world events.

At one point. Lincoln said, “I may not be a great man. I know I'm not a great man—and perhaps it is better than it is so—for it makes me rely upon One who is great and who has the wisdom and power to lead us safely through this great trial [of the Civil War.]”

A couple's destination wedding was almost in jeopardy when their dog, Chickie, chewed up the groom's passport just days before the wedding. Donato Frattaroli and Magda Mazri connected five years prior when Magda worked at Donato’s restaurant. After three years of friendship, the couple began dating, and eventually began to plan their dream wedding at a destination in Italy, where they both have family and friends.

After eighteen months of planning and preparation, it seemed like everything was set. But just days before departure, Chickie ruined everything by chewing up Donato’s passport.

“It’s hard to describe," said Donato when he first saw the damaged passport. "It’s not like all the joy left me, but it was definitely panic.” Magda laughs when remembering the incident, because she had to act quickly to ensure their plans would stay intact. She says Donato is usually the calm one, but on that day she was able to put into practice everything she’d learned from their relationship, and quickly took charge.

They explored the possibility of obtaining a same-day passport, but the availability of appointments proved to be a major hurdle. They were willing to travel anywhere in the country to secure a passport, but with the help of local officials, managed to secure an appointment in their hometown of Boston several days later.

Reflecting on the passport ordeal, the couple found perspective during a complicated journey home after their honeymoon in France. They encountered missed flights, cancellations, and a challenging return to Boston via Amtrak. Through these trials, they learned to adapt and pivot, a valuable lesson for their journey together as a married couple.

Possible Preaching Angle:

When mishaps occur, accidents take place, or circumstances turn tragic, God is capable of supernaturally transforming our tragedies into triumph--and even if they don't work out the way we want, God will always remain with us.

Molly Lee was a passenger on a flight from Charlotte to New York when another passenger made it clear she was not comfortable. She said it was at that point the woman began crying. One of the flight attendants overheard the woman and immediately went to comfort her and help her overcome the anxiety she was experiencing.

Lee said, “He just was so reassuring, so calming and said, ‘You know what? I got you.’ 'I'm gonna be there for you, just anything you need to let me know.’ With every little noise, she'd be like, 'What's that?' He's like, 'That's okay. That's just the jet bridge pulling away' or whatever the case may be. And that really helped her. He didn't have to do that, you know, and to just see someone extend their heart in that way to a stranger was just beautiful to me, and I wanted to capture it.”

Lee said the flight attendant, Floyd Dean-Shannon, sat next to the woman for nearly 10-minutes just holding her hand and reassuring her that she was safe. She captured the moment in a photo and posted it to her Facebook. The post has since been shared more than 11,000 times.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Experiencing God; Presence of God – Jesus told us never to fear because the Father’s full attention is on us, even to numbering the hairs of our head (Matt. 10:29-30); 2) Comforter; Holy Spirit - The disciples were full of fear to hear that Jesus would be leaving them. But he reassured them by saying, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever” (John 14:16; John 16:7)

R. Douglas Fields writes about the vigorous activity of the brain during sleep:

Midway between our unconscious and conscious minds there is the altered mental state of sleep. If you should live to the age of seventy-five, you will have spent perhaps twenty-five of those years asleep. What goes on in your head during that block of your lifetime is largely beyond your knowledge or comprehension. It is a mysterious and still mystical chunk of ourselves.

If sleep were simply a nightly hibernation, a shutting down of our system in the dark, it could be understood as a reasonable strategy to save power for the daytime when we can be physically active. Sleep might be much like a laptop computer going into temporary hibernation to save resources during long periods of inactivity. But hibernation is hardly what goes on in the human brain during sleep. Sleep is a vigorous period of brain activity. It is an altered state, not an inert state.

There are cycles and patterns of activity during our nocturnal unconscious life shuttling enormous amounts of activity through different brain circuits. Events of the day—conscious and unconscious—are reexamined, sorted, associated, filed, or discarded. Memories are moved from one place in the brain and filed in different places in our cerebral cortex according to such factors as the type of information they contain, their connections to other events, and the internal emotional states of mind stamping them with significance.

Possible Preaching Angle:

We read repeatedly in Scripture that God spoke to one servant or another in a dream, or while they slept. He even spoke to unbelievers whose actions could impact his people. Why does God choose to speak to people while they sleep? Maybe it is because they are so busy or so distracted or so obstinate while awake that he speaks to them when they are asleep.

Suppose you were exploring an unknown glacier in the north of Greenland in the dead of winter. Just as you reach a sheer cliff with a spectacular view of miles and miles of jagged ice and snow covered mountains, a terrible storm breaks in. The wind is so strong that the fear arises that it might blow you and your party right over the cliff. But in the midst of it you discover a cleft in the ice where you can hide. Here you feel secure, but the awesome might of the storm rages on and you watch it with a kind of trembling pleasure as it surges out across the distant glaciers.

At first, there was the fear that this terrible storm and awesome terrain might claim your life. But then you found a refuge and gained the hope that you would be safe. But not everything in the feeling called fear vanished. Only the life-threatening part. There remains the trembling, the awe, the wonder, the feeling that you would never want to tangle with such a storm or be the adversary of such a power.

God’s power is behind the unendurable cold of Arctic storms. Yet he cups his hand around us and says, “Take refuge in my love and let the terrors of my power become the awesome fireworks of your happy night sky.”

Steve Magness, a performance coach who has worked with Olympians and professional athletes, has become an expert on resilience. Magness notes that admitting our weaknesses can actually increase our resilience.

Imagine being dropped in the woods with a friend or two and asked to live off the land to survive. In the U.S. military, this is part of everyone’s training. It’s called SERE: survival, evasion, resistance, and escape. Studies find that up to 96 percent of individuals experience dissociation during the training—the fog of war. Some handle it better than others.

I talked to individuals who went through this crucible, and they reported the same thing. As one soldier put it,

When there’s a difference between what you project and what you are capable of, it all crumbles under stressful situations. On the other hand, if you’re honest with yourself, and acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses, what you’re capable of and what might scare you, then you can come to terms with what you’re facing and deal with it. It’s not bravado, it’s humble confidence. A little doubt keeps you sharp.

Research backs this up. We want our perception of the difficulty of a challenge and our ability to handle it to be realistic and overlap. When we go in with bravado, it backfires because at the first inkling that we may not be able to succeed, our brain freaks out.

Editor's Note: Magness does not share the Bible's perspective on bringing our weakness to the Lord, but at least he gets the need to admit our weaknesses.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June of 2022, that a Bremerton, Wash., high-school football coach was improperly fired for praying with his players after games. That was only the most recent of high court cases involving the question of when prayer on public grounds is and isn’t permissible. Americans, especially American liberals, have been obsessed with the question for more than 60 years.

The idea that prayer is improper at big-time sporting events was forgotten one Monday night, (January 2, 2023). It happened nine minutes into the game between the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals. Bills safety Damar Hamlin, after a routine tackle, stood up and then collapsed. Minutes later, emergency medical staff delivered cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The game was suspended, and suddenly prayer was back on the list of things anybody could talk about or do on camera.

Paycor Stadium, where the Bengals play, is owned by Hamilton County; it’s public property. But no one, so far as I am aware, raised any objection to the midfield prayers offered up that Monday night. That is because the fall of Damar Hamlin demanded a religious response. The ominous way in which the lithe 24-year-old dropped to the turf—not slumping down but falling backward—visibly shocked nearby players and appalled viewers.

Any legal or cultural prohibitions attaching to sporting-event prayers were rescinded. Players knelt, many plainly in prayer. Commentators, rightly sensing the need to go beyond conventional references to “thoughts,” spoke repeatedly of “prayers.” A Bengals fan held up a hastily made placard bearing the words “Pray for Buffalo #3 Hamlin.” Fans from both teams gathered outside the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, to which Mr. Hamlin had been taken, and collectively prayed for the young man.

Suddenly prayer—the ancient activity of speaking to God in the belief that he can hear and respond—was everywhere. Top-level coaches and players, former and present, posted appeals to “Pray for Damar.” Former quarterback Dan Orlovsky, discussing the game with two panelists on ESPN, did the until-now unthinkable: He bowed his head and actually prayed—with two other commentators. The prayer concluded, each said “Amen,” and you felt they meant it.

There is something natural and beautiful in the desire to entreat God to aid a gravely injured man. News reports on Thursday (January 5, 2023) indicate that Mr. Hamlin, against every expectation, is cognizant and able to communicate. Not everyone is surprised.