The Magnificent Bankruptcy of Worry: On Paying Interest for Debts That Never Were

There is no more striking image of human folly than a man who rushes about frantically, pulling out his hair and emptying his pockets to pay interest on a debt he never contracted, to a creditor who doesn't exist, for goods he never received. Yet this is precisely what we do whenever we worry. We become accountants of imaginary catastrophes, treasurers of troubles that may never come to pass, and faithful servants to problems that exist only in the fearful chambers of our own minds.

I have often noticed that the most profound truths come disguised as the most obvious remarks, and this saying about worry's fraudulent interest rates bears all the marks of such a truth. For what is worry but a kind of moral usury, a spiritual taxation without representation, a payment extracted from the present moment for crimes yet uncommitted against a future yet unarrived?

Consider the arithmetic of anxiety. Every moment spent in worry is a moment stolen from joy, a coin taken from the treasury of the present and invested in the stock market of catastrophe—a market that, incidentally, has the worst returns in all creation. The anxious man is like Midas in reverse; everything he touches turns not to gold but to grey, not to treasure but to trouble. He takes the bread of today and transforms it into the bitter bread of imaginary tomorrow.

But let me approach this matter more systematically, for if we are to understand the bankruptcy of worry, we must first understand its claims to legitimacy. The worried man will tell you, with great earnestness, that his anxiety is practical, necessary, even virtuous. "I am merely being prudent," he says, "preparing for difficulties, showing responsibility." And there is just enough truth in this to make the lie believable—which is, of course, the hallmark of all the best lies.

There is indeed a difference between prudence and worry, though the anxious soul confuses them as readily as a man mistakes his reflection for a stranger. Prudence is the virtue that prepares; worry is the vice that pays interest on loans never taken. Prudence plants seeds in spring for autumn's harvest; worry plants only the seeds of its own multiplication, worry worrying about worry in an infinite regression of anxiety.

The Christian perspective illuminates this distinction with particular clarity. Christianity has always understood that tomorrow has troubles enough of its own without borrowing difficulties from next week, next month, or next millennium. The Gospel speaks with stunning directness about this matter: "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

This is not, as some suppose, a call to improvidence or carelessness. It is rather a recognition of the fundamental structure of reality itself. God has arranged the universe so that each day brings exactly what we need to deal with that day's actual challenges. Worry attempts to create a monopoly on troubles, accumulating tomorrow's potential problems while making us incompetent to deal with today's real ones.

The worried man becomes like a student who spends so much time fretting about the final examination that he cannot concentrate on the daily lessons that would actually prepare him for it. He fails not because the test was too difficult, but because he paid so much interest on the debt of future failure that he bankrupted his present capacity for learning.

There is something almost supernatural about worry's ability to create the very conditions it fears. The anxious parent, fearing their child will become fearful, fills the house with anxiety until the child lives in a permanent state of alarm. The worried employee, fearing failure, becomes so paralyzed by the possibility of mistakes that they cannot function effectively. Worry becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, a down payment on disasters that might never have occurred without the down payment.

But perhaps the most profound insight about worry's illegitimate interest rates comes when we consider the theological dimension of the matter. From a Christian viewpoint, worry is not merely impractical or unproductive—it is fundamentally faithless. Not faithless in the sense of lacking religious belief (for many of the most anxious people are religious), but faithless in the deeper sense of not believing that the universe has any fundamental benevolence or purpose.

Worry is atheism in practice, even when it's dressed up in religious clothing. It says, in effect, "I do not believe that there is a God who knows my needs and provides for them. I do not trust that there is any meaning or purpose to existence beyond what I can control and manipulate through my anxiety."

This is why worry is always sterile, always barren. It produces nothing but more worry. Like a spiritual cancer, it consumes the very substance it claims to protect. The worried mother, claiming to love her child, becomes so consumed with anxious scenarios that she cannot actually enjoy the child's presence. The anxious businessman, claiming to want success, becomes so paralyzed by fear of failure that he cannot take the very actions that would lead to success.

Consider how children understand this instinctively. Watch a child at play, completely absorbed in the present moment. They do not worry about where tomorrow's games will come from or whether next week's playmates will be available. They trust (without thinking about trust) that the world will provide what is needed when it is needed. And in this, they are profoundly wise.

Christ himself pointed to this childlike wisdom when he spoke of the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. These creatures live without anxiety not because they are thoughtless or improvident, but because they are perfectly aligned with the economy of grace. They take each day as it comes, neither hoarding yesterday's joys nor mortgaging tomorrow's possibilities.

The worry-merchant will object: "But surely some concern for the future is necessary! Surely planning and preparation are virtues!" And indeed they are. But there is all the difference in the world between preparing for tomorrow and paying interest to tomorrow. The difference lies in the attitude, the spirit, the fundamental orientation toward reality.

When we prepare for the future out of love—love for those we seek to provide for, love for the tasks we want to complete, love for the life we have been given—our preparation is joyful, creative, energizing. But when we worry about the future, we drain the present of its vitality, treating it merely as a down payment on an uncertain future.

The Christian understanding of providence provides the perfect antidote to worry's usury. Providence doesn't mean that nothing difficult will ever happen; it means that whatever happens, sufficient grace will be available to meet it. We don't need to pay interest on potential troubles because the payment for all troubles—past, present, and future—has already been made by One who had the authority to make it.

This is the magnificent absurdity of the Gospel: that all debts have been paid in advance, all interest rates have been canceled, all mortgages on tomorrow have been forgiven. The only debt we still owe—and this is no debt at all, but rather our highest privilege—is the debt of love, which increases not by paying interest but by spending principal freely and joyfully.

Therefore, when worry comes knocking at the door of consciousness, offering its fraudulent bills and fake invoices, we can respond with the confidence of one who has checked the accounts and found them all marked "Paid in Full." We can refuse to pay interest on debts we never owed, to a creditor who has no legal standing, for goods we never ordered.

Instead, we can invest our energies where they belong: in the present moment, in the actual people before us, in the real tasks at hand, in the genuine opportunities for love and service that each day brings. We can live like children again, trusting that tomorrow will take care of itself while we attend to the glorious work of today.

For in the end, the anxious life is not really living at all—it is merely a prolonged exercise in spiritual usury, paying compound interest on imaginary debts while the real treasures of life go unclaimed. How much better to declare spiritual bankruptcy to worry's illegitimate claims and to live instead in the magnificent solvency of grace, where every day brings exactly what we need, and what we need is always exactly enough.

The birds still sing without stock portfolios. The flowers still bloom without insurance policies. And the children of the kingdom still dance without worry, knowing that their Father in heaven knows what they need before they ask. Perhaps it's time we learned their arithmetic: that one moment of actual presence is worth infinitely more than a lifetime of anxious interest payments on debts that were never real in the first place.

-The Seeker's Quill