How To Not Be Anxious About Money When Gas Prices Are Killing You

I realize this isn’t a unique predicament. I’d wager (only theoretically, I’m not risking my hard- earned cash) nearly everyone interested in an article with the words “Anxious” and “Gas Prices” in the title has experienced an expense-induced gut punch in the pit of their stomach. But have you ever done a cost/benefit analysis on the price of Chipotle vs Qdoba to ensure you made the “right” choice? (Qdoba doesn’t charge extra for guac. Do with that what you will.) I am that guy.

The fact is, as I get older, the burden of finances only gets heavier. The costs of home ownership, vehicle maintenance, and groceries have all been steadily climbing. Anyone who has children can attest that becoming a parent, while wonderful, also means consciously uncoupling with any previously disposable income.

Earlier this year, when gas peaked at $5 a gallon, it was easy to feel as though it was impossible to get ahead financially. Thankfully, I’ve found there is relief to this very real and very oppressive anxiety. Like budgeting, it requires practicing specific habits every day.

Don’t Worry (Yeah, But…)

When anxiety feels overwhelming, I typically revisit the book of Philippians in the Bible, where early missionary Paul urges Christians not to be anxious about anything, but to present their requests to God through prayer (Philippians 4:6-7). Paul goes on to say that the peace of God, which transcends understanding, will guard our hearts and minds.

Sounds good, though I’m pretty sure Paul didn’t pay a mortgage, put kids through daycare, or call his bank in a panic to make sure his checking account didn’t accidentally overdraft.

That said, historians believe Paul likely wrote the book of Philippians from prison. So maybe he does have some credibility to speak those words. It’s hard to argue with the perspective of a man who’s lost his freedom when he says, earnestly, “Don’t worry, it’s going to be okay.”

But it’s still tough to believe at times, especially when it’s 3am, and I’m staring at the ceiling thinking about my family’s budget. I can know the words of scripture, but I often don’t feel them. These feelings of uncertainty are only compounded later, staring at our credit card statement, wondering, “How am I going to pay for all this?”

Some days it feels like no matter how well you plan and save, the budget is just fighting back with no relief in sight.

How Did I Get Here?

For almost everyone, our attitudes, philosophies, and feelings about money can be traced back to our experiences with it—good, bad, and ugly. I grew up in a middle-class household with two educators for parents (Mom was a teacher, Dad an administrator). My parents’ philosophy was to never spend beyond your means, meaning if they couldn’t afford it, they didn’t buy it—it was that simple.

Dad was especially focused on saving as much as possible, as often as possible. I once referred to him as thrifty, and he corrected me: “No, I’m cheap.” As I recall, he was smiling when he said it. How cheap? I once watched him walk into Office Depot and successfully negotiate 20% off the price of a filing cabinet because it was the floor model, was missing a key, and had some discoloration.

To be clear, I’m not throwing my old man under the bus. Watching him inform (“negotiate” would imply Dad was interested in a counteroffer) the poor kid working the day shift in an office furniture chain store that he needed to remove $32 from the sale price, I was in awe.

“How did you DO that?” I asked as we walked to the car.

“I never negotiated the price of our house, and I’ve never forgiven myself for that,” was his response.

Growing up with that narrative about money taught me to be careful with finances, but I also learned to constantly worry about the bottom line. One of my grandfathers—who, I understand, never failed to provide for his family—used to abide by the philosophy that he hadn’t adequately prepared for a situation unless he had worried about it. As unhealthy as this sounds, I also completely relate to it, and there are days when, in my head, this seems perfectly logical. After all, what better indicator is there that I’ve prepared for a problem than examining the situation so thoroughly that I’ve exhausted myself thinking of all the possible reasons things can go wrong?

The truth is, anxiety about money doesn’t mean you're winning. Worry won’t add anything to your bank account, though you might succeed in driving your wife crazy (trust me).

Fish and Bread For Everyone—Even Me

As it happens, Jesus had a few things to say about worrying: He was against it.

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” - Matthew 6:25-27

If that weren’t clear enough, he doubles down on it.

“Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” - Matthew 6:31-33

And then, just in case we weren’t paying attention the first two times, he tells us again.

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” - Matthew 6:34 (NIV).

That’s a lot, so let’s recap to make sure we’re all on the same page: Jesus says that God knows what we need; if we follow Him, He has our back, no need to worry.

These are more than empty platitudes—Jesus backed up those words with actions.

The Bible contains four biographies of Jesus. Though each one was written by a different author, all four of them contain the story of Jesus feeding a crowd of 5,000+ people. It is an impressive miracle, but I think the reason it’s included across all four books is that it teaches us something about worry and God’s provision.

A crowd had formed after seeing and hearing Jesus performing healings and miraculous signs. If you’ve ever been to a big event, you know it’s only a matter of time before someone gets hungry, and hunger is contagious. Jesus’ disciples (who, like me, were prone to worry despite God telling them over and over again to stop) had no idea how to feed such a large crowd. All they could find were five loaves of bread and two fish (for context: imagine everyone you’ve ever met in your life shows up at your house for the Super Bowl, and the only food you have to offer is a pair of Taco Bell burritos and cinnamon twists). Undeterred, Jesus blessed the food and instructed the disciples to pass it around. Incredibly, the food never ran out. Not only did everyone get their fill, there were actually leftovers.

The Bible never explains how Jesus produced the excess fish and bread—He just did it. That’s the thing about God; sometimes, He just does things. They don’t comply with logic, but they happen just the same. Ironically, despite my underlying anxiety about it, I can find no greater evidence of this in my own life than in my finances.

My wife, Burgundy, and I have been married for nearly 10 years. Like countless couples before us, we’ve faced multiple financial stresses together. Two months after we were married, I lost my job. When our daughter was born, we self-financed part of Burgundy’s maternity leave. During COVID, I was unexpectedly furloughed for three months. We had unanswered questions about when student loans would be paid off. There always seem to be Christmas presents we forget to budget for. I constantly question whether we have enough in our Emergency Savings and Retirement Funds.

And yet, in virtually every one of these circumstances, I’ve seen God tangibly provide.

After I lost my job, I found a new one within six weeks—I had expected to be job searching for six months. We were never without anything we needed during Burgundy’s maternity leave. We found additional, supplemental income throughout COVID that enabled us to prosper. A significant portion of our student loans were unexpectedly forgiven; the balance is now $0. Unexpected bonuses, raises, rebates, refunds, and gifts have matched and exceeded times when something went unexpectedly over budget.

You might be able to find a secular explanation for each of these examples, but personally, having prayed over each of them, and experiencing results better than I could have even dreamed, it’s impossible for me not to believe that God was involved.

I get it, money is stressful. Even with these victories in our backstory, I still have anxiety as I watch the gas meter approach E. But I’m learning to trust that if Jesus had enough bread and fish for the crowd, then he’s got enough for my mortgage, car payment, and energy bill. That doesn’t give me the right to be wasteful, but it does help me sleep at night knowing that the full weight of our bank balance isn’t solely on my shoulders.

I’m not saying I don’t have runaway worries from time to time, but when I do, I’ve found these three practices help me quickly find my head and my hope again.

With the price of everything on the rise, you might find them helpful too.

1) Ask

While Jesus tells us not to worry. He’s very much in favor of prayer. If we need or want (yes, want) something, we should ask God directly. Sometimes this message gets muddied—if you grew up in a tradition where God was to be thought of only with fear and respect, then it’s easy to buy into the lie that He’s unconcerned with our day-to-day lives. Thankfully, Jesus directly contradicts this.

While teaching on prayer, Jesus says, “And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”

He takes it a step further, asking, “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

As most fathers know, we want to help our children when they have a problem; we want them to come to us when they’re distressed. The same is true of God. It doesn’t mean we’ll receive everything we ask for—if my son asks to jump off the roof of the house, I’m not going to let him because I know this would harm him (also, I live 30 minutes from our local Children’s Hospital and gas is $5 A GALLON). As a good father, God wants to comfort us and help us when we ask.

2) Give

I get it, I can feel you rolling your eyes right now. Generosity can seem both counterintuitive and painful when money is already tight. Taking that a step further, and practicing the tithe, which means giving 10% of your gross income back to God, can seem downright dangerous. And yet, I can’t deny what this practice has grown and developed in my own life.

If I’m being perfectly honest, there have been months when I’ve looked at the list of bills awaiting payment and thought, “Really? Is giving this money back to God actually the best use of our limited finances?” This thought hit especially hard when student loans were still on the books, and I would periodically calculate how much would have been paid off were we not giving this chunk to the church.

Though painful in the moment, I genuinely can’t think of a time when the money we gave away was actually missed.

Periodically throughout our marriage, for one reason or another, Burgundy and I paused tithing. Despite my initial fears, no unexpected lightning bolts came down from heaven, smiting us for doing wrong. But I can’t say having the extra dollars in the bank account made money any less stressful.

On the other hand, I can look at all the ways God has met my family’s needs, and see it as proof that God keeps His promises and takes care of his own, especially when we bet on him by doing what He asks, even when it’s hard.

Generosity has been difficult since, well, forever. Ancient prophet Malachi, who lived 400 years before Jesus, said something pretty remarkable about it. “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.”

I can’t help but smile at this verse. Scripture is full of warnings against putting God to the test—except with our money. If you’re worried about whether or not God will cover you after committing a portion of your income to Him, He has this to say: try me.

In my story, every time I’ve tested Him, he's come through.

3) Remember

By my calculations (meaning, I Googled it), the word “remember” appears some 250 times in the Bible. Why? Because humanity is so quick to forget, myself included. Even with all that God has done in my life, I still have to fight back money anxiety, and I sometimes find myself approaching God with a “what have you done for me lately?” attitude.

That’s precisely why, when I’m asking God for help navigating through a difficult situation—with our budget, with my job, with family—I also make a point to thank him for the growing number of times He’s answered our prayers. Instead of anxiety about what I don’t know, I focus on what I do know from my own story: God has come through in the past, and He will again.

The Bible says that Jesus holds all things together. Thank goodness that includes our family budget, even on extra-long pay cycles (dang you 31 days in July!). As I’m waiting for pay day, the best thing I can do is remember.

Money Stress Doesn’t Have To Win

If money stress seems overwhelming these days, I get it. I’m right there with you. I’m no expert, just a husband and dad trying to do the right thing, follow my God, and provide for my family.

Turns out, the best way to serve my wife and kids isn’t just in the dollars and cents I bring home, but in modeling a growing trust in God that goes to him in prayer when we have needs, acts out my faith by practicing generosity, and remembers His goodness as I wait for a breakthrough.

When I need relief from money stress, I’m learning to turn to God.

And when I’m looking to save a few dollars on retail office furniture… well, I know a guy.