Agency Is the Answer to Your Anxiety
How faith in action breaks the cycle of helplessness
This is a modified manuscript of a sermon preached at The Well Church in Boulder on the 5th of October in the Year of our Lord, 2025
“He will guard the feet of his faithful ones,
but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness,
for not by might shall a man prevail.
The adversaries of the LORD shall be broken to pieces;
against them he will thunder in heaven.
The LORD will judge the ends of the earth;
he will give strength to his king
and exalt the horn of his anointed.”
— 1 Samuel 2:9–10
Our church just wrapped up a study of 1 Samuel. Rather than walk verse-by-verse through another text, I want to zoom out and see three major themes that run through the whole book: providence, faith, and agency.
These three realities explain not only how God works in the world, but how we are meant to live in it.
1. Providence — God’s Sovereign Hand Over History
Providence means that God rules and arranges all things according to His will. According to his sovereign will and good pleasure, he is like a composer perfectly arranging notes, inflections, staccatos and crescendos all for his glory and our good.
Think of great composers from history like Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, or Vivaldi, who were able to weave together compositions using various instruments to write incredible music. Or even someone like Hank Williams who composed some of the most iconic music in the last century.
God is like a composer. He is weaving together and arranging matters in his providence. We praise God for sending His Son to die and rise again, and rightly so, but we often fail to praise Him for how He governs our days. Every sunrise, every conversation, every detour and disappointment is part of His composition.
Bitterness blinds us to providence. Gratitude opens our eyes to it. You cannot praise God for His providence if your soul is poisoned with resentment.
Look at 1 Samuel:
God opens Hannah’s womb (1:20).
God arranges Saul’s meeting with Samuel (9:15–17).
God preserves David’s life again and again (23:14).
God’s providence isn’t just over empires and armies. It extends to a barren woman’s tears, a shepherd’s courage, and even a church’s new building. Nothing without Providence - as our state motto in Colorado says.
2. Faith — Trusting God’s Providence Amid Uncertainty
Faith is confidence in God’s providence. It’s not just believing in God, but believing God.
This faith is gift from God. It is not something that we necessarily possess on our own. That is crucial to understanding how God works. It is not just that you have to have enough faith on your own to be Christian.
Faith itself is a gift of God. And that is why we pray for more faith. And many times God will lead us in to situations where must have faith in him despite extraordinary odds against us.
There is a dynamic aspect to this part of our religion. What I mean is that while faith is a gift of God, we can neglect or even squander this gift. Meaning that we may have been given faith but we are also responsible for cultivating that gift. We have a duty to be people who remember the promises of God and have faith in him.
Think of it like your first car. Some paid for your first car outright. But many others were gifted their first car from their parents. This car was something given to you, it is not something you earned. But you are in charge of maintaining the car and ensuring that it operates well. And you don’t crash or speed and break the law. There is dynamic aspect to our faith in God. We may do not control God and his providence in history, the world, and our lives, but with this gift of faith we are called to exercise it, like a muscle.
Humans are people who hunger and inevitably put their faith in something or someone. All people are this way. Whether you are an atheist who has faith in the big bang and evolution, or you are a Muslim or Hindu, or you a Christian. All people are hardwired to be people who have faith.
The question is not “will we have faith?” but “what is the object of our faith?” And we must ensure that whomever or whatever our faith is oriented towards and anchored in is true and not false. It would ludicrous to have faith in something that is not worthy of faith or true.
If you were to in a boat on the ocean and you wanted to stop somewhere you would use an anchor that could reach the bottom and was heavy enough to keep your boat in the same spot.
But if you were to tie that anchor line to a rubber ducky, you know the ones that kids like in the bath, and then say I have faith the rubber ducky would hold the bold, that would be foolish. Because the object of your faith is not worthy of faith. In the same way, we are responsible to ensure that the object of our faith is truth-worthy and true.
Like Hannah praying in her barrenness.
Like David standing before Goliath.
Like David again, strengthening himself in the Lord when everyone else wanted to stone him (1 Sam. 30:6).
The question is never whether you have faith. Everyone does. The question is: What is the object of your faith?
If you anchor your life to a rubber ducky, don’t be surprised when the tide carries you away. Faith in false things always leads to despair. Faith in the living God leads to courage and action.
3. Agency — Acting in Accordance with God’s Providence
Agency is faith in motion. It’s what happens when you stop waiting for the perfect conditions and start doing what God has already called you to do.
“Faith without works is dead,” James says.
In 1 Samuel, faith always acts:
Samuel responds, “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.”
Jonathan climbs the hill, saying, “It may be that the Lord will work for us.”
David runs toward Goliath and cuts off his head.
Agency says I have control and I can do something. It says that God has given me the ability to do something about my current circumstances and based on his providence and my faith in him, I will act.
I believe that one of the great ills of our current age is that Christians do not exercise agency. Christians may have a very polished faith, they may have a nice doctrine and nice life, but they fail to act. They fail to put their faith into action by doing things for God.
In fact, I think much of the despondency, depression, and anxiety which does not just plague our society but affects us personally, are better understood as a lack of agency. I have often thought that if someone could cure the latent anxiety most people live with today with a pill, that person would be billionaire. But it’s not a secret. And you don’t need a pill. You need to apply yourself over and over and over again. Or in the words of William Hickson’s famous poem, “try try try again.”
You know that feeling of being overwhelmed, like you have too much to do, like there is not enough time in the day, and you can’t do it all. This is how many of us live daily. We sense that life is too much and too hard. That feeling right there. That is a trap. What do I mean?
I mean it slips you into an unChristian state of mind where you believe that you lack the ability to change you life. You begin to doubt God’s providence and you doubt the object of your faith God himself.
Will God give you more than you can handle? Yes. If you pray for God to strengthen your faith, you can bet that in his providence he will afford you opportunities to grow your faith. But that does not mean you should be despondent. Might you have too much to do? Sure. But you can do something about it.
Agency starts with taking responsibility for what is yours to be responsible for. If you are a husband and father, you take responsibility for those duties which are yours, protecting, providing, and leading your family in matters of faith. You don’t make excuses like it is too hard and no one will listen to you. If you are a wife and mother, same deal, you take responsibility for your duties, your nurturing, mothering, and keeping the home. You don’t make excuses just because the mess in the home keeps coming back. If you are a child, you take responsibility. You don’t make excuses just because you don’t like your parent’s rules.
Let’s say you wanted to be a better father. You want to lead better in the home or provide better both materially and spiritually. Guess what, you don’t need to just wait around to figure out a plan or feel bad about it. Just do something about it. Today. Now.
Or if you want to get married. You don’t just wait around for someone to show up. You do something about it. If you’re a single guy. You ask a girl out. If you’re a single girl. You go up and talk to the guy you’re interested in.
Low agency or passivity sounds like this:
“Everyone else seems to have a better life than me”
“Life is too hard for me.”
“The problems I face are too complex to solve.”
It leads you into victimhood and feeling self-pity. And ultimately it leads you away from God because you begin to doubt his goodness and diminish the object of your faith.
Agency sounds like:
“God’s providence is real.”
“I have faith in God.”
“I will work for God’s glory.”
Let’s use a practical example. Let’s say you want to start a business. You have faith in God and believe in his providence. But the thought of starting a business is very overwhelming and so you pray, God please help me start a business. But nothing really happens. You keep praying, thinking that your faith must be weak. “God please help me start a business.” And you wait still nothing. This is not agency. This is not what faith and providence do.
Agency says, “I trust in God’s providence and I have faith. I believe that he has called me to do this. Who do I know that has started a business? I will text them right now and ask them how they did it. I will start a website. Do I know how to make a website? Nope. I can learn.”
You see, the answer to your anxiety is agency. It is not more self-pity. It is not victimhood. It is saying “this is what I have been given, whether I like it or not, and I will do the best I can with what God has providentially ordained for me.”
Do you have too much to do? Fine. Then get rid of something. Or don’t do all the things that you think you need to do. You can exercise agency.
We think our anxiety is a mystery to solve or a condition to medicate. But much of our anxiety is the result of learned helplessness. We’ve stopped taking action.
The Cure for Anxiety Isn’t a Pill — It’s Agency
When life feels overwhelming, too much to do, too many responsibilities, we tend to spiral into paralysis. We start believing that we are powerless to change our situation. That’s not Christian. That’s unbelief.
It doesn’t mean you can fix everything. But it does mean you can do something.
Stop waiting for God to do the thing He has already equipped you to do.
The Train of Christian Life
Providence and faith are like the rails of a train track. Agency is the train that runs on them.
Without the rails, you derail. Without the train, you sit still.
Jesus embodied all three:
He trusted His Father’s providence as He went to the cross.
He exercised perfect faith amid suffering.
He took action, laying down His life of His own accord.
And because of that, He rose, ascended, and reigns.
A Church of Defiant Hope
Imagine a church filled with people who live like that. People who see God’s hand in all things, trust Him through uncertainty, and act boldly in the face of fear.
That church would not live in victimhood or self-pity. It would live with defiant hope.
That’s the kind of church we strive to be.
Because we serve a God who thunders from heaven, who guards His faithful ones, and who exalts His anointed.
Agency is the answer to your anxiety.
Faith is the strength behind your action.
Providence is the ground beneath your feet.
The battle belongs to the Lord but He still calls you to fight.
Thanks for reading! You can listen to this sermon here or watch here.