Under Covers
casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7 NASB
Anxiety – “Of course I know I’m dreaming,” I said to myself in my dream. But it didn’t help. The spectre of imminent injury was still there. In fact, intensified. Yes, I knew it was a dream but it was a real dream. Waking up to make it go away didn’t seem possible until the car I was driving careened off the road and crashed with my children flying through the air and then—I woke. I confirmed it was a dream, but now, in the dark, under the covers, it was still real—real anxiety for the fourth night in a row. Not always the same scenes but always the same danger, always the same agitation that something, somewhere was really wrong. That sense of foreboding that sticks with me all during the day. No wonder I want to see a therapist.
When Peter wrote this line in his now-canonized letter, I wonder if he only had the dangers of Roman occupation in mind. Government oppression comes and goes. Concern about survival is a momentary problem. You get enough to eat, you find shelter, you hide from the bad guys, and anxiety diminishes. But what if the anxiety is internal? What if it’s about subconscious trepidation, dark corners in the underground of your life, places you know you’re afraid to look? Do you think Peter’s exhortation works in the soul’s abyss? Do you think God can care about things you don’t even know how to care about?
Bultmann’s etymological analysis sets the framework. First, he notes that “The plural mérimnai is often used for the cares of life which disturb sleep, from which refuge is sought in love or drink, and which only death can end.”[1] Yes, that’s right. Nightmares are what we call mérimnai under covers. Death is the only real solution. He goes on to provide a perfectly logical, rational analysis:
merimnán is self-concern relative to the future. The questions show that worry is what is meant. It is this that makes a proper concern foolish by fostering the illusion that concern for the means of life can grant security to life itself. The future is not in our hands. We cannot add one cubit (either length of days or stature) by worrying. The right course is to seek first the kingdom, and God will see to other things, not removing uncertainty, but taking the worry out of it. A bit of secular wisdom drives home the point . . . It is ridiculous to add tomorrow’s worry to that of today.[2]
And, of course, we agree. Until bedtime. Worse than the anxiety of not wanting to get out of bed in the morning is the anxiety of not wanting to go to bed for fear of dreaming. The solution isn’t offering a rational analysis because mérimnai aren’t rational. What we need is emotional care, not logical explanation. Peter’s advice is just another fortune cookie unless it produces cardiac rest.
Topical Index: anxiety, mérimnai, nightmares, care, 1 Peter 5:7
[1] Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (p. 584). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.
[2] Ibid.
