Grief and anxiety are destroying me. What is God up to?
On hot days in Tennessee, the humidity is so thick you have to chew it just to taste the air in your lungs. Today is one of those days. After two hours at the gym, I stepped outside hoping for a breath of fresh air — only to find I had to fight for that first breath.
Today feels like a sultry metaphor — a reflection of a long, heavy week as a psychologist. The air is thick with grief. It has been an unusually sorrowful stretch: a teenage suicide; two young widows grieving the sudden loss of their young husbands; a heroin addict in critical care after a relapse, etc. The weight of it all sits in the chest like humidity — dense, stifling, and challenging to breathe.
There are moments in life like this, when everything in us wants to shut down. The weight of grief, the ache of betrayal, the gnawing presence of anxiety — all of it tempts us to believe that surrendering to despair is the only option. And yet, in those moments, something profound can happen — we choose to seek God, not in strength, but in the desperate reflex to breathe, to cling to life.
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This act — to call on God in desperation — is not a passive cry. It is an act of defiance against despair. It is the will’s quiet but determined stand against the tide of hopelessness. And it may be the most powerful expression of faith we can offer.
When the psalmist writes, “To you, LORD, I call; you are my Rock, do not turn a deaf ear to me” (Psalm 28:1), he is not standing on a mountaintop. He is gasping in the valleys. And yet he chooses to cry out. That choice is sacred. It reveals something deeply theological and profoundly psychological: The will to live — to breathe, to keep moving — is more than survival. It’s built into us. God wired us with agency, with the ability and desire to choose, even when we feel powerless.
That moment when you’re exhausted, scared, or completely out of answers, and something in you still pushes forward, that’s not just grit; it’s not strategy or self-help — it’s the soul gasping for God. Like a drowning person lunges for air, we reach not because we’re strong, but because we’re wired to need Him. It’s instinct. It's design. It’s desperation wrapped in hope. And here’s the miracle: God doesn’t wait for perfect prayers or polished faith. He meets us in the gasp. Even the smallest turn of the heart toward Him is enough — and He moves.
Too often, we associate faith with calm confidence. But in Scripture, faith is more rugged. It is not the absence of fear or weakness. It is the willful decision to trust in God despite fear and weakness.
This is not stoicism. It is surrender — not to fate, but to the One who governs it. To pray when everything in you wants to give up is not a mark of spiritual simplicity. It is the will, engaging in an act of holy resistance.
When you choose to seek God in your sorrow, you are doing something profoundly countercultural. The world tells you to escape, to numb, to distract. But the Christian soul is trained in a different art: the will to seek, to cry out, to wrestle, and to wait.
This is not weakness. It is spiritual strength. When you whisper a prayer through tears, your will is resisting despair. When you open your Bible while questioning God, your will is resisting cynicism. When you ask others to pray for you because you cannot find the words, your will is resisting isolation.
This is the paradox of the human spirit under grace: Just when despair threatens to suffocate, something deeper stirs — the instinct to breathe, to chew on life, to inhale even the thickest air because hope is still somewhere in it.
This is the sacred miracle, that in the thick air of sorrow and the silence of unanswered questions, God still hears. Not because our words are strong, but because His mercy is near. The turning of the soul toward Him — however faint, however weary — is not forgotten. It is received. For in that gasp, that cry, that simple choice to reach for Him again, we find both the fragility and the strength of true faith.
Not polished. Not triumphant. But real.
And in that reality, God does not merely respond — He draws near, breathes life, and proves once again that grace is strongest when we are weakest.
Dr. David Zuccolotto is a former pastor and clinical psychologist. For 35 years he has worked for hospitals, addiction treatment centers, outpatient clinics and private practice. He is the author of The Love of God: A 70 Day Journey of Forgiveness.
