Chinwe had been a pharmacist for nine years when it happened. She ran a busy community pharmacy on a street off Allen Avenue in Ikeja, the kind of place where mothers bring feverish children at nine at night and old men come in to have their blood pressure checked and stay to talk about politics. She was careful by nature. Her staff joked that she read a prescription the way other people read a contract.
One Thursday afternoon in March, with the shop full and the generator struggling, she picked the wrong strength of a heart medication from the shelf. The two boxes were almost identical. She labelled it, counted it and was about to hand it over when her assistant, checking the bag, said quietly, “Madam, this one is the higher dose.” Chinwe looked, and her stomach dropped. She corrected it, apologised to the customer, and nobody was harmed. The whole incident lasted perhaps ninety seconds.
But it would not leave her.
That night she lay awake replaying the moment. What if my assistant had not checked? What if the old man had taken it? What if I have done this before and never noticed? By Saturday she was going back through weeks of records. By the following week she was checking every prescription three times, then four, and still the thought returned: one day you will kill someone. She stopped sleeping properly. At church she sat through the sermon hearing nothing, her mind back at the dispensing counter.
She did what she had been taught to do. She prayed. She went to a night vigil and stood for prayer at the altar. She fasted for three days. She rebuked the spirit of fear. Each time she felt a little lighter for a few hours, and each time the thought came back, as strong as ever, usually around two in the morning.
When she finally came to see me, what troubled her most was not the thought itself. “Pastor, I have prayed and prayed,” she said. “If my faith were real, wouldn’t my mind be quiet by now? I think something is wrong with me spiritually. I think God is disappointed that I still cannot trust Him.”
I have met many believers who carry that same double load. There is the troubling thought, and then there is the verdict they have passed on themselves because the thought has not gone. This teaching is for them. Scripture is far more honest about restless minds than many of us have been taught to expect, and it offers language, company and a way forward that does not depend on the noise falling silent first.
The night is when it gets loud
One of the most honest descriptions of a sleepless, troubled mind in the whole Bible comes from a man named Asaph, one of David’s chief musicians. Psalm 77 begins like this:
I cried unto God with my voice, even unto God with my voice; and he gave ear unto me. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted. I remembered God, and was troubled: I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah. Thou holdest mine eyes waking: I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
Listen to what he admits. “In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord.” He did the right thing. He prayed. “My sore ran in the night, and ceased not.” The Hebrew speaks literally of his hand stretched out in the night, the posture of prayer held for hours. He prayed through the darkness, and still: “my soul refused to be comforted.”
That phrase is worth reading slowly. Asaph was still seeking God. He was describing a soul that would not settle, however much comfort was offered. Many readers will recognise it. You know the verses. You have been prayed for. Friends have encouraged you. And something inside you will not receive the comfort, or receives it for an hour and then lets it slip.
Then comes something even more surprising: “I remembered God, and was troubled.” For Asaph, at this point, thinking about God did not bring peace. It added to his distress, because the God he remembered seemed so far from the circumstances he was in. And then: “Thou holdest mine eyes waking: I am so troubled that I cannot speak.” He lies awake. He cannot find words. He even speaks as though God Himself were keeping his eyes open.
This is in the Bible. It was set to music and sung in the worship of Israel. God has included in His Word a prayer from a man whose mind refused to rest even while he was praying. That should tell us something about how God regards such seasons. Far from editing them out, He gives them a place in the hymnbook of His people.
If your mind is loudest at night, you are in old and honourable company. The night removes the distractions of the day. There are no customers, no deadlines, no conversations to fill the space. Whatever has been waiting at the edge of the mind comes forward. That does not mean your faith has collapsed. It means you are a human being lying in the dark.
A psalmist far from home
Psalm 42 is often read for its famous refrain, and that refrain is precious. But the whole psalm repays careful attention, because it shows us where the writer was and what he was hearing:
Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar. Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life. I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God? Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.
He tells us his location: “from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.” Mount Hermon stands in the far north of Israel, where the springs that feed the Jordan come pouring out of the rock. The writer was far from Jerusalem, far from the temple where he had once “gone with the multitude... to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise” (Psalm 42:4). He was in exile, or something like it, cut off from the worship and the people that had sustained him.
And he hears water. “Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.” In that northern country, streams crash down from the heights in waterfalls and rapids. The psalmist turns the roar of the water into a picture of his inner life. Wave after wave. One deep calling to another. A noise that does not stop. Anyone whose mind has refused to rest knows exactly what he means. The thoughts do not come one at a time, politely. They crash in sequence, each one setting off the next.
Notice also the voices he cannot escape. “As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?” The taunt cuts so deep that he feels it in his skeleton. Daily. It is a repeated question, and its power lies precisely in its repetition. Many troubled thoughts work like that. Often they are the same question asked again and again until it wears a groove in the soul.
And then there is verse 9, which deserves more attention than it usually receives: “I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me?” Look at the two halves of the sentence. He calls God my rock. He also asks why God has forgotten him. He holds both in the same breath. He does not wait until his feelings are resolved before he addresses God as his rock. Nor does he pretend his feelings are resolved because he has called God his rock. He brings the confession of faith and the cry of confusion together, and lays them both before the Lord.
That is the language a troubled believer needs. You do not have to choose between honesty and faith. You can say, “Lord, You are my rock, and I do not understand why this will not leave me.” Both sentences can be true at the same time.
PunchlineYou do not have to choose between faith and honesty. “God my rock” and “Why hast thou forgotten me?” can be prayed in the same breath.
Remembering on purpose
Both psalms turn at a similar point, and the turn is instructive.
In Psalm 77, after verses of agonised questions (“Will the Lord cast off for ever?... Hath God forgotten to be gracious?”), Asaph writes: “And I said, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High” (Psalm 77:10). This is my infirmity. He names his condition as a weakness, a wound. He recognises that the conclusions his troubled mind has been drawing are coming out of his pain, and he chooses to set them beside something else: “I will remember the works of the LORD: surely I will remember thy wonders of old” (Psalm 77:11).
From that point the psalm changes direction. Asaph begins to recall the exodus, the waters that saw God and were afraid, the path through the sea, the people led “like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron” (Psalm 77:20). He does not deny his present darkness. He sets it inside a larger story.
Psalm 42 makes a similar move. “Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life” (Psalm 42:8). Notice what the psalmist expects. He says that in the night God’s song will be with him. The night still comes. The noise of the waterfalls does not stop. But another sound is present in the dark, a song that belongs to God.
This is a very different expectation from the one many of us carry. We think peace means the absence of troubling thoughts. The psalms suggest that peace can mean the presence of God’s song alongside them. For a pharmacist lying awake at two in the morning, that might mean a quiet hymn she learned as a child, sung under her breath. It might mean reciting a psalm she has memorised. It might mean simply saying, “Lord, You are the God of my life,” and saying it again when the thought returns. Remembering is something you can do on purpose, even when you cannot make yourself feel calm.
Peace on guard duty
Paul wrote to the Philippians from prison. He was chained, uncertain whether he would live or die, and surrounded by soldiers of the Roman guard (Philippians 1:13). The church he was writing to had its own troubles: opposition from outside, and a painful disagreement between two women who had worked alongside him, Euodias and Syntyche (Philippians 4:2). It is into that setting that he writes:
Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.
There is much here, but I want to draw attention to three phrases that speak directly to a restless mind.
The first is “The Lord is at hand.” The phrase can mean that the Lord’s coming is near in time, and it can mean that He is near in presence. Both are true, and both help. The troubled mind feels alone with its noise. Paul places the Lord right beside the believer, close enough to hear the faintest prayer. You are not shouting across a great distance.
The second is “in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.” In every thing. That includes the thought that has returned for the fortieth time. You do not have to wait until you have something new to say. You can bring the same concern again, in the same words, as Jesus did in Gethsemane when “he went away, and prayed, and spake the same words” (Mark 14:39). Repetition in prayer is not a failure of faith. Sometimes it is the shape faith takes when the burden is heavy.
The third is the promise itself: “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” The word translated keep is a military word. It means to guard, to hold a place under watch. Paul uses the same word in his second letter to the Corinthians when he describes how the governor of Damascus “kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison” (2 Corinthians 11:32). The Philippians, living in a Roman colony full of retired soldiers, would have pictured a sentry on the wall.
Now think about what a garrison does. A garrison does not prevent anyone from approaching the city. Enemies may still come up to the walls. Noise may still be heard outside the gates. What the garrison does is ensure that the city is held. The peace of God works like that. It does not always stop troubling thoughts from approaching. It stands guard over your heart and mind so that those thoughts do not take the city.
That is why Paul can call it a peace “which passeth all understanding.” It does not make sense by ordinary measures. A man in chains, facing possible execution, writes about rejoicing. A believer whose mind is still noisy finds that, underneath the noise, something holds. The sentry stays on the wall.
Paul then directs the Philippians’ attention to whatever is true, honest, just, pure, lovely and of good report, and he tells them to put into practice what they have seen in him. I will not repeat here what other teachings have said about that list. Simply notice its order. Prayer first. Then the guarding peace. Then attention and action. Paul tells the Philippians to pray before their thinking has been sorted out, and he promises them a guard, and then he gives them something worthy to think about while the guard holds the wall.
Faith is not measured by the noise
NuggetChinwe’s deepest fear was that her restless mind proved her faith was weak. It is worth asking where that idea came from, because it is not from the apostles.
Listen to Paul describing a season in his own ministry:
For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us ; Ye also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf.
“We were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life.” This is the apostle Paul. He does not tell us exactly what happened in Asia, though it may have been connected with the violent opposition he faced in Ephesus. What he does tell us is how it felt. He was crushed beyond his capacity. He reached the point of despair. He felt, in his own words, that he had received a sentence of death.
Paul presents this as part of how God taught him to trust: “that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead.” The despair was real, and God was at work in it. Faith did not mean Paul never reached the end of himself. Faith meant that, at the end of himself, he found God who raises the dead.
Then notice verse 11: “Ye also helping together by prayer for us.” Paul did not carry that season alone. He tells the Corinthians that their prayers were part of his deliverance. The great apostle, who wrote so much about the sufficiency of Christ, wanted ordinary believers praying for him.
If we measure faith by the absence of mental noise, we will misjudge some of the most faithful people in Scripture. Asaph would fail the test. The writer of Psalm 42 would fail it. Paul in Asia would fail it. Jesus Himself, as we shall see in a moment, would fail it. The test is wrong. Faith is measured by where you turn, not by how quiet your mind is when you get there. A person who keeps turning to God through a storm of troubling thoughts is exercising more faith, not less, than a person whose mind happens to be calm.
Jesus did not pray alone
On the night before His crucifixion, Jesus went to a garden called Gethsemane. Mark tells us what happened with unusual directness:
And they came to a place which was named Gethsemane: and he saith to his disciples, Sit ye here, while I shall pray. And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy; And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch. And he went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.
Mark’s words are strong. Jesus “began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy.” The first phrase suggests a deep, shuddering distress. The second suggests a weight that presses down on the soul. Then Jesus Himself puts it into words: “My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death.” The Son of God, without sin, was so overwhelmed that He felt the sorrow could kill Him.
Now look at what He did with it.
He brought it to the Father. “Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.” He named what He wanted. He did not pretend. And He placed His desire under His Father’s will.
He also asked for company. “He taketh with him Peter and James and John.” He brought three friends further into the garden than the others, told them how He felt, and asked them to stay near: “tarry ye here, and watch.” The eternal Son, in His humanity, wanted friends close to Him in His distress. He did not consider it beneath Him to ask.
It is true that the disciples failed Him. They fell asleep, three times. Later “they all forsook him, and fled” (Mark 14:50). Human support is imperfect, and sometimes it lets us down at the moment we need it most. Luke adds that “there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him” (Luke 22:43). The Father sent help that the friends could not give. But the failure of the disciples does not cancel the example of Jesus asking. He showed us that seeking support in distress is part of a holy life.
This matters enormously for believers whose minds will not rest. Many of us have absorbed the idea that a strong Christian deals with these things privately, between himself and God. Jesus did not. He prayed to the Father, and He asked His friends to watch with Him.
For Chinwe, that meant several things. It meant telling her husband the whole story, which she had not done because she felt ashamed. It meant meeting with me and with an older woman in the church who had worked in healthcare for many years. And it meant seeing her doctor, who listened carefully and referred her to a clinical psychologist. The psychologist helped her understand that her mind had become caught in a loop of fear and checking, a pattern that is common after a frightening experience, and taught her practical ways to respond to it.
Some believers hesitate at that last step. They wonder whether seeing a psychologist or taking medication means they have stopped trusting God. Scripture gives no reason to think so. “Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety” (Proverbs 11:14). God often helps His children through the skill and care of other people. A doctor who treats a troubled mind is no more a rival to God than a doctor who sets a broken arm. “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). Sometimes the burden is carried by a friend with a cup of tea, sometimes by a pastor with a Bible, and sometimes by a professional with years of training. All three can be God’s provision.
Settled after a while
Peter wrote to believers who were suffering for their faith, and his words about casting care on God are among the best loved in the New Testament. But it helps to read a little further than we usually do:
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you .
After the invitation to cast our care, Peter immediately adds a warning: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” He is honest that there is real opposition. A lion roars to frighten its prey, and much of the noise in a troubled mind has that character. It is loud, and its aim is to make us run.
How do we respond? “Whom resist stedfast in the faith.” Notice that Peter calls for steadfastness, a steady standing, rather than frantic activity. And then he adds a sentence of quiet comfort: “knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.” You are not the only one. Brothers and sisters all over the world are going through the same kind of trial. Your restless mind is not evidence that you are uniquely broken. It is part of the shared experience of God’s people in a fallen world.
Then comes the promise: “But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.”
After that ye have suffered a while. Peter does not promise instant relief. He promises that the suffering is for a while, and that God Himself will act at the end of it. Look at the four verbs. God will make you perfect, which can mean to restore or mend, the word used elsewhere for fishermen mending their nets. He will stablish you, making you firm. He will strengthen you. And He will settle you, which comes from the word for laying a foundation.
That last word is a beautiful promise for a mind that refuses to rest. The restless mind feels like a building with no foundation, shaken by every passing tremor. God promises to lay a foundation beneath it. Not all at once, perhaps. “After that ye have suffered a while.” But He is “the God of all grace,” and He finishes what He begins.
Rise up, let us go
There is one more thing that Jesus did in Gethsemane, and it may be the most practical of all. After praying three times, after the anguish, after the sleeping disciples, He said: “Rise up, let us go; lo, he that betrayeth me is at hand” (Mark 14:42).
The cup had not been taken away. The hour of suffering had come. But Jesus stood up and walked towards the next thing His Father had given Him to do. He did not wait for His soul to feel light before He moved. Strengthened by prayer, He took the next step of obedience.
This is wonderfully freeing for a believer whose mind will not rest. You do not have to wait until the thoughts are quiet before you can live faithfully. You can pray, tell God the truth, receive whatever help He provides, and then rise and do the next ordinary thing. Make breakfast for the children. Answer the email. Open the shop. Go to the appointment. Take the walk. The noise may come with you. That is all right. Faithfulness can be carried out in a noisy mind.
Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). God gives grace in daily portions. You do not need tomorrow’s grace today, and you do not need to solve the whole problem of your restless mind before lunch. You need grace for the next responsibility, and He gives it as you take it up. “It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23).
There is also something about ordinary responsibility that is itself a kind of help. A mind left with nothing to do but wrestle with itself will often grow louder. A mind given a task, a conversation, a piece of honest work, a meal to cook, is gently drawn outward. This does not mean we bury our troubles in busyness. It means that the next ordinary duty is often one of the places where God meets us.
And when the day is done, there is rest to be received rather than achieved. “It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep” (Psalm 127:2). Sleep is described as a gift to the beloved. If it does not come easily, you may need help with it, and there is no shame in that. But you can lie down tonight as one of God’s beloved, whatever your mind is doing. David, who knew many sleepless nights, also wrote, “I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety” (Psalm 4:8). Your safety does not depend on how quiet your mind is. It depends on the Lord.
PunchlineChinwe’s recovery was not sudden. For several months the thought still came, sometimes at the counter, more often at night. But things changed.
She learned to recognise the thought when it arrived and to call it what it was: This is my infirmity. She learned, with her psychologist’s help, to check each prescription once, carefully and properly, and then to stop, even when the urge to check again was strong. She learned to pray the same short prayer as often as she needed it: “Father, You are my rock. I give You this fear again.” She memorised Psalm 42 and would say it under her breath on the drive home. Her husband started praying with her before bed. The older woman from church called her every Friday.
About eight months later, she told me something I have not forgotten.
“Pastor, I used to think that when God healed me, the thought would just stop. One day it would be gone, and I would know I had faith. That is not quite what happened. The thought got quieter, and it comes less often. But the real change was before that. The real change was when I stopped waiting for my mind to be silent before I believed God was with me. I realised He was with me at two in the morning, in the noise. His song was in the night. The thought was loud, but the guard was on the wall.”
Then she added, smiling a little, “And I still open the shop at eight o’clock.”
Perhaps your mind has been refusing to rest. Perhaps you have prayed, fasted and stood at the altar, and the thought is still there. Please do not add a second burden to the first. Your faith is not measured by the silence of your mind. Bring the troubled thought to your Father as many times as it comes. Tell Him, “You are my rock,” and tell Him, “I do not understand.” Let others watch with you. Receive the help He sends. And then rise up and take the next ordinary step. The God of all grace, after you have suffered a while, will settle you.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- Which troubling thought tends to return in your life, and when is it loudest?
- Have you measured your faith by the absence of mental noise? How does the example of Asaph, the psalmist in Psalm 42, Paul and Jesus challenge that measure?
- The psalmist calls God “my rock” and asks “Why hast thou forgotten me?” in the same breath. What would your honest version of that prayer sound like?
- Jesus asked His friends to watch with Him. Who could you invite to support you, and what kind of help might you need beyond friendship?
- What is the next ordinary responsibility God has given you that you could take up today, even with a noisy mind?
This Week
Choose one short, honest prayer that holds both faith and struggle together, such as “Father, You are my rock. I give You this again.” Pray it every time the troubling thought returns this week, without counting how many times. Tell one trusted person what you are facing, and if the thought has been disturbing your sleep, work or relationships for some time, book an appointment with a doctor. Each morning, write down the next ordinary responsibility you will take up that day, and do it as an act of trust.
A Prayer
Father, You are my rock, and there are times when I do not understand why my mind will not rest. I bring You the thoughts that keep returning, and I bring them again. Thank You that You do not despise my weakness, that Your Son knew sorrow even unto death, and that You hear me in the night. Let Your song be with me in the dark. Let Your peace stand guard over my heart and mind. Give me the humility to receive help from the people You send. Strengthen me to rise and take the next step You have given me, and after I have suffered a while, settle me on Your foundation. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.