You are not alone.
One person at Grace told me she feels anxious and hopeless when looking at credit card balances each week. The internal struggle of trusting God, paying down debt, saving, and giving makes her feel “stuck.” Bills and debt keep her from helping and giving the way she wants to.
Concerns about money and the economy are top stressors across generations, but especially for Gen Z and Millennials. According to the American Psychological Association’s survey, Stress in America 2023, 67% of 18–34-year-olds and 63% of 35–44-year-olds “feel consumed by” money worries.
Here are three gospel truths to calm financial anxiety.
No. 1: Your past doesn’t determine your trajectory.
The beauty of the gospel is that no matter how others’ brokenness has affected you, no matter the poor choices you’ve made, God graciously forgives and restores. Jesus offers a new life and a new way forward. If this is true for the direction and meaning of your whole life, of course it’s true in your financial life too. If God can answer the biggest questions, isn’t He big enough to work in a smaller area of your life too?
Just because your parents struggled to make ends meet doesn’t mean that you always will. Just because you’re in debt now doesn’t mean you’ll always be. Just because you’re making the minimum wage now doesn’t mean you’re stuck there forever. Through wise choices and God helping you, a different path is possible.
No. 2: Faith is active, not passive.
Trusting God and working hard aren’t mutually exclusive. The Apostle Paul says “work out your salvation” exactly because God is at work in you (Phil. 2:12–13). We can pursue maturity and goodness because we’re joining in the work God’s already doing.
Financially, then, we trust God to provide, and we work hard. We pray for God’s provision and recognize that the ability to work comes from God. God typically answers the prayer for daily bread indirectly—through gifts like intellect, strength, perseverance, and creativity—rather than directly: manna from heaven. He’s growing our dependence and our agency.
As you trust God, submitting to His Word, what do you need to do to achieve or maintain positive cash flow?
What was your income last month? How much did you spend? How can you increase income and decrease spending?
Is it time for a roommate? A different career? Learning a trade?
Can I help you get connected to a financial advisor? Or class? (Email me: [email protected])
No. 3: Even in hardship, God is working for your good.
Suffering is at the center of the gospel. This doesn’t of course make crucifixion good. But our God is powerful enough to transform pure evils into complex goods. With a broader, divine perspective, Jesus willingly entered suffering because He knew the result: making us His family (Hebrews 2:9–11).
Hardship, like physical pain, can turn us inward: we focus on what hurts, seeing and feeling only the immediate present. But don’t mistake a snapshot for the whole story!
The gospel reminds us that our story is so much bigger than today. God desires nothing less than your complete well-being, and He is working in ways that we don’t know and can’t fully imagine. In what would otherwise be only pain, God shapes us into the people He has made us to be, knowing and wanting what is good, able to receive every good from God with gratitude and humility (James 1:2–4, 17).
At some point, God will transform your circumstances. In the meantime, He’s preparing you to receive all the good He has planned for you. He is with you in financial hardship to grow your dependence on Him, grow your capacity as a human being, and grow your joy in His presence. May God fully accomplish all the good He has planned for you!
Visit discovergrace.com/next to introduce yourself, learn more about the ministry of Grace, and take your next step toward Christ.
