Dana is one of the most devoted people I know. She prays, she serves, she loves God deeply. And she worries — about almost everything, including her relationship with God. Did she pray enough? Is he disappointed in her? When a hard season comes, her first thought is, “What did I do wrong?”
Dana has carried a belief for years, and it sounds almost reasonable: I’ll be okay once I get rid of this anxiety. Once I stop worrying. Once my faith finally feels calm and settled — then I’ll really be close to God. Then I’ll be the leader I’m supposed to be.
Maybe you’ve believed some version of that too — that your insecurity is the thing standing between you and the life with God you long for, and that you have to fix it, become steadier and calmer and more sure, before you can really flourish.
I want to share something I hope lifts a weight off your shoulders. Because when we looked at the data, they told a very different story.
What 25,000 Christians Revealed About Anxiety and Flourishing
We analyzed more than 25,000 Christians who took the Spiritual Transformation Inventory, one of the assessments I’ve developed, looking at how they relate to God and how they’re doing overall. And one finding stood out.
We expected that the people carrying the most anxiety and insecurity would be the ones struggling most. Often they were. But not always. There was a group of people who carried real anxiety — and real avoidance too — and were flourishing near the very top of the scale.
What set them apart wasn’t that they’d eliminated their insecurity. They hadn’t. It was that alongside the insecurity, they also had a secure connection with God.
Secure Attachment to God Buffers the Cost of Insecurity
Here’s the clearest way to see it. Take two people who carry the exact same load of anxiety and avoidance toward God — the same fears, the same self-protection. The only difference between them is that one also has a felt, secure connection with God, and the other doesn’t. On our flourishing scale, the person with the secure anchor scored around 5 out of 6. The person without it — same insecurity, no anchor — scored around 4. That’s roughly the distance between a life that’s thriving and one that’s running on empty. Same anxiety. Same avoidance. The secure connection was what set them apart.
And it held across the board. Every group high in secure attachment to God flourished in a tight, high band — whether they carried a little insecurity or a lot. The security didn’t require the absence of fear. It sat right alongside it, and the cost of the insecurity was far lower.
This lines up with something from a separate study on how we relate to the people closest to us: anxiety and security aren’t opposite ends of one continuum. You can carry real anxiety and, at the very same time, hold a genuine, secure connection. One doesn’t cancel the other.
“You do not have to become un-anxious to become secure.”
What Secure Attachment Really Is (It’s Not the Absence of Fear)
That reframes how we pursue growth. We tend to assume a secure faith means a calm, untroubled one — no fear, no doubt, no neediness. So when we feel afraid or unsteady, we conclude something is wrong with us, and we try to fix the feeling before we’ll let ourselves come to God.
But that’s not what secure attachment really is. Think of a young child at a playground. A securely attached child still gets scared — startled by a dog, spooked by a loud noise. Security doesn’t mean she never feels fear. It means that when she does, she has somewhere to run. She turns to her parent, gets comforted, and heads back out. The fear is real. The secure base is also real. And the secure base is what empowers her to keep going.
That’s the picture. A secure connection with God is not the absence of anxiety. It’s having a reliable place to bring the anxiety — over and over — and being met there. The goal was never a fearless faith. It’s an anchored one.
Scripture assumes exactly this. “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you” (Psalm 56:3). Not when I stop being afraid. The psalmist is afraid and trusting in the same breath. “Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7) — the invitation isn’t to get rid of the anxiety before you come. It’s to bring it to God.
How to Build a Secure Base With God
So what does this mean, practically — first for you, and then for the people you lead?
One: stop waiting to feel secure before you come. You do not have to calm down, clean up, or get your faith in order first. Bring the anxiety itself to God — the actual fear, in plain words. That isn’t a failure of faith; it’s the most secure thing you can do. Turning toward your anchor when you’re afraid is exactly how the bond is built.
Two: build the secure base through return, not resolution. A secure connection isn’t formed in one dramatic breakthrough. It’s built through hundreds of small returns — turning to God in a moment of fear, being met, going back out. Pick one simple way to return this week: a line of Scripture you pray when the worry spikes, a minute of honest prayer, a message to a trusted friend. Repeat it. The repetition is the point.
Three: if you lead, make your own secure base a top priority. You cannot be a steady, secure presence for the people you lead, coach, or parent if you don’t have a secure base yourself. Secure-base leadership doesn’t start with technique; it starts with the leader’s own felt security in God. The most important thing you bring into the room is a self that has somewhere to rest. So the first act of leadership is receiving.
Four: with those you lead, stop treating anxiety as the disqualifier. When someone comes to you anxious and unsteady in their faith, the old instinct is to tell them to have more faith, or calm down, or trust more — which usually just adds shame to the fear. The data (and clinical experience) suggest a better move: don’t try to remove their anxiety. Help them find an anchor. “You don’t have to stop being afraid — let’s find a place to bring the fear.” That’s something an anxious person can actually receive.
Loved Into Loving
Here’s what I most want you to hear. You do not have to become a calmer, steadier, less anxious version of yourself before God can love you, or use you, or grow you. He loves you as you are — anxiety and all — and that love is the secure base. It’s the anchor that holds while the fear is still learning to quiet down.
“We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). We are loved into loving — not loved once we’ve finally conquered our fear. The love comes first. The anchor comes before the calm. And from that anchor — not from your own steadiness — you’ll find you have something to give the people you lead.
Key Takeaways
● Across more than 25,000 Christians, a secure connection with God was associated with far higher flourishing — even among people who also carried significant anxiety and avoidance.
● Two people with the same insecurity can end up in very different places: the one with a secure anchor flourished near the top of the scale, while the one without it sat well below — the difference between thriving and running on empty.
● Anxiety and security are not opposite ends of one continuum. You can carry real anxiety and hold a genuine, secure connection with God at the same time — you don’t have to become un-anxious to become secure.
● Secure attachment is not the absence of fear; it’s having a reliable place to bring the fear, over and over, and being met there. A secure base is built through many small returns, not one breakthrough.
● For leaders: you can’t be a secure base for others without one of your own. Form your own felt security in God first, and stop treating a person’s anxiety as the thing that disqualifies them.
Ready to Go Deeper?
Attachment Filter Matrix (free guide). Discover how your own way of relating to God shapes the way you handle fear and stress — and the practical next step for your pattern.
https://relationalspirituality.co/resources/attachment-filter-matrix
RS Coaching Readiness Quiz. See how your attachment patterns shape your spiritual growth — in about five minutes.
https://quiz.relationalspirituality.co
The RS Lab. Monthly training calls, done-for-you resources, and a community of leaders working on exactly this.
https://www.relationalspirituality.co/training/rs-lab