Raise your hand if you’ve experienced this proverb. “Anxiety in a person’s heart weighs it down, but a good word cheers it up.” (Proverbs 12:25, CSB) We all have our anxious moments and seasons. And we’ve experienced those moments when a timely good word changes our whole day.
The proverb is clear, and the experience is real. So, what more do I need to say? Well, either this is going to be the shortest devotional in the history of Lambchow, or there’s more to explore than we see at first.
The challenge for this proverb isn’t the truth presented but the application. We can add to someone’s anxiety or help them lift it up. The most common human interactions revolve around either transference or manipulation.
In transference, we seek, either knowingly or unknowingly, to transfer our own emotions to another. If we’re bitter, we want them to be bitter. If anxious, we want others to be anxious. If we’re fearful, we want others to fear the same thing. In manipulation, we attempt through guile or force to make others feel a certain way, even if we don’t.
The anxiety we feel may not be our own. Political movements, social media influences, and traditional media programming use these methods to keep people buying what they are selling. Fear being on of their primary tools of manipulation.
Remember 2020 and COVID. For months, we all lived in fear. And that anxiety was heavy on many. We all waited for the “good word” that a cure or preventive had been found or that the pandemic had run its course. We all had a moment when we decided we would no longer live in fear.
There are many good words that could cheer someone up and blow away the mists of anxiety. The ultimate word, however, is something we find in Hebrews 12:18-24. In the first part of that section, the writer describes the Hebrews’ anxiety and fear at meeting God at Mount Sinai. “For you have not come to what could be touched, to a blazing fire, to darkness, gloom, and storm, to the blast of a trumpet, and the sound of words. Those who heard it begged that not another word be spoken to them,” (Hebrews 12:18–19, CSB)
The writer continues to describe the utter joy and freedom of those in Christ. “Instead, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God (the heavenly Jerusalem), to myriads of angels, a festive gathering,” (Hebrews 12:22, CSB) For us today the important bit is verse 24. “and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which says better things than the blood of Abel.” (Hebrews 12:24, CSB)
Genesis records that after Cain murdered Abel, his blood cried out from the ground. (Genesis 4:10) The innocent slain by the guilty, the blood crying out for justice. But Hebrews says that Christ’s blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. The perfect lamb slain for the guilty, his blood crying out for forgiveness, love, and grace.
And that, my friends, is the good word, the good news, that blows away the fog of anxiety and fear. God is on His throne. His love for us is demonstrated in Christ and in His blood, which speaks the best word to us.
- Essential Worship – A Worship Map - March 4, 2026
- Proverbs – Anxiety - March 2, 2026
- Essential Worship – Sprirt and Truth - February 25, 2026
