15 of God’s Promises That Will Anchor You When Life Feels Unsteady

Keep trusting in the Lord and do what is right in his eyes. Fix your heart on the promises of God and you will be secure, feasting on his faithfulness.

Psalm 37:3 TPT

Promises are fundamental to relationships—we establish trust and confidence in each other when we do what we say.

And yet, while promises are easy to make, they are not always easy to keep (at least not for humans). Politifact has a site dedicated to tracking promises kept and broken by recent administrations. While it’s a helpful tool for tracking the performance of our elected officials, it’s also a sobering reminder that we can never entirely place our trust in people without, at some point, experiencing disappointment.

Thankfully, we have a God who always keeps his promises.

God’s promises are unchangeable

So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary.

Hebrews 6:18-19 NLT

We can trust God’s promises not only because he says he will keep them, but also because his promises are good. They bring good things, like confidence, hope, and steadiness in any situation.

His promises also give us everything we need to live a godly life and escape the darkness of the world around us: 

By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. [4] And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.

2 Peter 1:3-4 NLT

When we live by God’s promises, we have access to his divine nature and power, which gives us everything we need to live a life full of resilience, love, and courage. Armed with God’s promises, we can rise above the fray of human emotions, desires, and limitations. We can live with confidence and strength in this world, no matter what comes our way. 

What follows is a collection of God’s promises in the Bible that will anchor us in any circumstance. People and situations in our lives will come and go, and we can’t always control or predict when or how. But we can always rely on God’s promises, and they will keep us strong and stable even if everything else falls apart.

If you’re currently facing something that’s making you feel afraid—a period of uncertainty in your life, or a situation so out of your control that it’s making you doubt God’s presence—then let these scriptures build your confidence in God’s willingness and ability to anchor you as you go through them.

God promises to help in times of trouble

God is our refuge and strength [mighty and impenetrable], a very present and well-proved help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change and though the mountains be shaken and slip into the heart of the seas…

Psalm 46:1-2 AMP

The psalmist in this passage inspires us to believe that God is our refuge even in the most calamitous of conditions. While we don’t face literal cataclysms in our day-to-day lives, we all experience storms: 

• Health issues
• Financial difficulties
• Relationship turmoil
• Unemployment or underemployment

I could go on. You’ve likely experienced most, if not all, of these examples at some point and you may have more to add to my list. 

Trusting God and building our lives on what he says will equip us to stand strong in any hardship or difficulty. Since his words are unchanging, we have a stable foundation to rely on when our lives feel unstable:

I will show you what it’s like when someone comes to me, listens to my teaching, and then follows it. It is like a person building a house who digs deep and lays the foundation on solid rock. When the floodwaters rise and break against that house, it stands firm because it is well built. [49] But anyone who hears and doesn’t obey is like a person who builds a house right on the ground, without a foundation. When the floods sweep down against that house, it will collapse into a heap of ruins.”

Luke 6:46-49 NLT

God promises to quiet our storms of self-criticism

My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love. This is the only way we’ll know we’re living truly, living in God’s reality. It’s also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves.

1 John 3:18-20 MSG

Negative thinking can be debilitating. It makes me feel unsteady on the inside even if no big “storms” are hitting me on the outside. I’m often my own worst critic—I can think of long lists of things I’ve done wrong, people I’ve likely offended, and ways I’m falling short. 

Believing God knows us better than we know ourselves means believing he can see beyond our perceived shortcomings. He has a purpose for us and knows that we have something unique to offer others. Loving people and seeing an impact in their lives is the way that God can build our confidence and shut down our self-criticism.

God promises he won’t leave us alone

Don’t be obsessed with money but live content with what you have, for you always have God’s presence. For hasn’t he promised you, “I will never leave you alone, never! And I will not loosen my grip on your life!” 

So we can say with great confidence: “I know the Lord is for me and I will never be afraid of what people may do to me!”

Hebrews 13:5-6 TPT

One of the most inspiring aspects of our relationship with God is that we have access to him at any time. He is always with us, and we don’t have to worry about living a life where we have to fend for ourselves. 

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow-not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. [39] No power in the sky above or in the earth below-indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38-39 NLT

There’s nothing we, or any person, can do to separate us from the love of God. Even the worst sins in Scripture can be removed from us because Jesus gave himself as a sacrifice for them. And the more we focus on this, the more confident we’ll become. We will be able to be completely ourselves, free from guilt or shame, because we know that nothing we do can make God turn his back on us. He will correct and train us like a loving parent, but he won’t abandon us or give up on us when we fall short.

God promises to calm all our fears

For the LORD your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”

Zephaniah 3:17 NLT

Fear can be all-consuming. I battle with four big fears daily:

1. Fear of rejection. What if people don’t like me?
2. Fear of failing. What if I can’t do it?
3. Fear of inadequacy. What if I’m not enough?
4. Fear of the future. What if it doesn’t work out for me?

These thoughts can paralyze me, leading me to procrastinate on the things I’m afraid of, like talking to people or trying new things. Spending time with God is the only solution I’ve found to be calm in the midst of these fears.

I prayed to the LORD, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears.

Psalm 34:4 NLT

The Bible is full of stories of people who were freed from their fears because they believed God’s promises. They trusted that he loved them and would never leave them (Deuteronomy 31:8), and as a result they moved forward courageously.

God promises to care for us affectionately and watchfully

Casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully.

1 Peter 5:7 AMPC

I love this passage because it puts in emotional terms the extent to which God cares about us. Let’s reference Collins Dictionary to break down a couple of standout words:

• Affectionately – “If you are affectionate, you show your love or fondness for another person in the way that you behave toward them.”
• Watchfully – “Someone who is watchful notices everything that is happening.” 

What conclusion can we draw from this? God is fond of us and wants to show it. He is not annoyed by us or begrudgingly listening to us He is paying attention to our lives and is looking for ways to love and bless us. 

God promises to support us when we’re intimidated

Don’t be afraid, because I am with you. Don’t be intimidated; I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will support you with my victorious right hand.

Isaiah 41:10 GW

When something intimidates us, it makes us lose confidence. There are plenty of things I feel intimidated by in a given week:

• Doing everything I need to do while prioritizing the needs of my family and friends.
• Tackling projects at work that require me to learn new skills.
• Parenting my daughter in the right way.
• Bringing up uncomfortable topics with a friend or family member.

At the root of my intimidation is usually a feeling of inadequacy. I don’t think I can really do what’s required of me and I doubt that I’m the right person for the job. This fear can make even ordinary tasks seem intimidating, and the way I usually respond to that fear is by avoiding these tasks completely.

But when I choose to believe God is behind me, supporting me in whatever it is I’m taking on, my confidence surges. Relying on my abilities or my resumé leaves me insecure, but trusting God to support me means believing that he knows what he is doing and he must want me exactly where I am. I become much more capable of seeing how God is guiding me toward something good even if things don’t go exactly the way I planned. 

God promises his peace will guard our thoughts and emotions

Never worry about anything. But in every situation let God know what you need in prayers and requests while giving thanks. Then God’s peace, which goes beyond anything we can imagine, will guard your thoughts and emotions through Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7 GW

Calm, the meditation and sleep app, has raised $218 million in funding since it launched in 2013. Relief from stress and anxiety is a need that’s so prevalent that the best minds in both medicine and Silicon Valley are working around the clock to figure out how to deal with it.

God promises us that in the midst of our worry, he can give us peace that surpasses human understanding. He can make us peaceful at times when it makes no sense to be peaceful. That’s a difficult one for me to believe at times, because I assume peace will only arrive when my problems are resolved. But God is telling us that we’ll find peace when our attention is directed primarily at him.  

Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil.

Psalm 37:8 NIV

When I choose to fret instead of taking my worries to God, I become hurtful to the people around me. I’m aloof, easily irritated, and generally unpleasant to be around. I need to trust that if I bring my needs to God, he’ll listen, and act. This is especially important when I’m going through a difficult period in my life; I need God to anchor me when my emotions threaten to send me adrift. 

God promises to give us wisdom

And if anyone longs to be wise, ask God for wisdom and he will give it! He won’t see your lack of wisdom as an opportunity to scold you over your failures but he will overwhelm your failures with his generous grace.

James 1:5 TPT

Definition time again! Wisdom is “the ability to use your experience and knowledge in order to make sensible decisions or judgments.” Decision-making is hard for me because of my fear. I worry I’ll do the wrong thing, but this passage says God will give me wisdom if I ask for it. 

I need to believe God’s promise here because I usually don’t, which means I think I need to find the answers to my problems on my own.

 Just make sure you ask empowered by confident faith without doubting that you will receive. For the ambivalent person believes one minute and doubts the next. Being undecided makes you become like the rough seas driven and tossed by the wind. You’re up one minute and tossed down the next. When you are half-hearted and wavering it leaves you unstable. Can you really expect to receive anything from the Lord when you’re in that condition?

James 1:6-8 TPT

I will guide you and teach you the way you should go. I will give you good advice and watch over you with love.

Psalm 32:8 NIrV

God promises over and over again to guide us in the way we should go… so why do we struggle so much to make decisions? The answer may lie in the amount of doubt in our hearts. Doubt will make us feel tossed around, even if we are trying to ask God for help.

The mistake I often make in prayer is I list out my problems to God, but don’t really believe he’s willing or capable of doing anything about them. God wants to help, but we limit our access to that help if we don’t actually believe he’s watching over us with love. 

God promises he will forgive us

Guilt makes me feel very unsteady. It makes me feel insecure, ashamed, stressed, and afraid of potential consequences if I were to admit my wrongs. 

These are uncomfortable feelings, so my instinct is to harden my heart, make excuses for myself, and minimize my choices (It wasn’t that bad! I didn’t mean to!). 

Luckily, the Bible has steadying promises for us even when we are being battered by storms of guilt:

For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, [26] for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.

Romans 3:23-26 NLT

Everyone has sinned. When we trust God’s heart to make us right through Jesus, we can freely admit our sins and be grateful for God’s forgiveness. 

God loves us so much that he sacrificed his son to take our sins away. Because of what Jesus did, God is able to remove any offense of mine, no matter how severe. So even when I make mistakes, I can freely admit them. I don’t have to be shaken by my guilt because God’s got it covered.

God promises not to hold a grudge against us

You don’t look at us only to find our faults, just so that you can hold a grudge against us.

Psalm 103:9 TPT

He will not constantly accuse us, nor remain angry forever. He does not punish us for all our sins; he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve. He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. The LORD is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him. For he knows how weak we are; he remembers we are only dust.

Psalm 103:9-10,12-14 NLT

Taking things a step further, God insists that he will not only forgive us for our sins, but also remain tender and compassionate toward us. He doesn’t hold grudges. 

I can often hold the erroneous view that while God may forgive me, he must hold on to some lingering feelings towards me. 

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

God doesn’t hold grudges. He moves on. He promises to love us forever, and his mercies begin anew daily. Since we wake up every morning with new sins, worries, and distractions, it’s important that we hold to these promises so we can face each day with the certainty that God is compassionate and happy to be in a relationship with us.

God promises to take care of our needs

You satisfy my every desire with good things. You’ve supercharged my life so that I soar again like a flying eagle in the sky!

Psalm 103:5 TPT

God promises to “satisfy our desires with good things.” This doesn’t mean that God is a genie ready to grant our wishes. While I may tell God that I want a free ticket to Hawaii this weekend, God is all-knowing, and understands that my heart is actually saying “I need help coping with stress in my life.” 

“That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life— whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

Matthew 6:25-30 NLT

It takes faith to believe that God will take care of our needs because they often feel urgent and unsolvable. But God wants us to believe in him enough not to give in to constant worry because worry can have a negative effect on our lives. It weighs us down (Proverbs 12:25) and makes us chase things that won’t really help.

Believing in God means believing that life is “more than food…more than clothing.” When we pray, we should spend time talking to God about the deeper desires we have underneath our day-to-day needs and look for the ways he answers those prayers. That way, even when our daily superficial wants and needs go up and down, our deepest desires are satisfied with God.

God promises that he knows the right time for things

This is what the Lord says: “At just the right time, I will respond to you. On the day of salvation, I will help you. I will protect you and give you to the people as my covenant with them. Through you, I will reestablish the land of Israel and assign it to its own people again.”

Isaiah 48:9 NLT

One of the most common reasons I get unbelieving is not seeing my prayers answered in the time frame I’m hoping for. When my view of God is distorted, and I expect him to deliver on all my wishes in my own time frame, I set myself up to be disappointed and disillusioned. 

So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.

1 Peter 5:6-7 NLT

God sees everything and understands every possible outcome. It’s arrogant of me to think I know exactly how and when my requests should be addressed. Instead, I can humble myself, giving my worries and cares to God, knowing that he cares about me, has my best interests in mind, and always knows when the time is right to respond.

God promises to give us strength when we’re tired

He gives strength to those who are tired. He gives power to those who are weak. Even young people become worn out and get tired. Even the best of them trip and fall. But those who trust in the LORD will receive new strength. They will fly as high as eagles. They will run and not get tired. They will walk and not grow weak.

Isaiah 40:29-31 NIrV

There are a lot of places I go when I’m feeling depleted, most of which are not beneficial to me physically or spiritually (TV, video games, food, doom-scrolling…I could go on). 

This passage inspires and challenges me because when I’m most tired, it’s hard for me to believe that seeking God will strengthen me more than taking breaks to do the things that make me feel better in the short term.

God promises he has a unique plan for our lives

I know the plans I have for you,” announces the LORD. “I want you to enjoy success. I do not plan to harm you. I will give you hope for the years to come. Then you will call out to me. You will come and pray to me. And I will listen to you. When you look for me with all your heart, you will find me.

Jeremiah 29:11-13 NIrV

I need to read this passage often because I can quickly make my Christian life solely about obligation and religious structure. I easily forget, in the times when I’m most uninspired, that God has plans specific for my life. He didn’t intend for me to become a Christian and then just survive day to day. He wants me thinking of the future and what my life can look like when I’m walking with him daily. When I believe this promise, my walk with God is exponentially more exciting. 

When my relationship with God feels dull, it helps to reflect on whether I’ve given up on dreaming about the years to come. Even when my future feels uncertain, God’s promises give me confidence that he always has the best plan for my life. Even if I don’t know where I’m going, as long as I’m walking with him, I know I’m walking in the right direction.

God promises to give us a way out when we’re stuck

The LORD will be at your side. He will keep your feet from being caught in a trap.

Proverbs 3:26 NIrV

The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.

1 Corinthians 10:13 NLT

God is with us, walking alongside us through everything we encounter in life. The older I get, the more complicated, tiring, and at times frightening life becomes. I often face situations that feel unsolvable and problems so unique that no one can relate to them. 

These passages challenge me to believe God will never put me in an unwinnable situation. On top of that, there are others out there who know the struggles because they’ve gone through similar experiences of their own. God and the people he puts in our lives are all we need to endure and resist the temptation to give up or give in.

Final thoughts

As the adage goes, the only certain thing about life is uncertainty. Every day we’re faced with situations that, in varying degrees, challenge our faith. These Bible verses about God’s promises are there to build our confidence that we are not going through life alone. While the issues we face may take time to resolve, trusting in God’s promises will give us the strength and courage we need to believe that we can emerge from them victorious.