You're never quite certain whether what's on offer will really bring peace or whether redemption comes with mutual obligation.

Religions usually promote a person's elevation to a spiritual plain of calm and contentment, leaving all your troubles behind.

Christians believe it's the work of the Holy Spirit while Eastern religions suggest an exotic, tranquil state of mind involves a process of protracted, intense meditation.

Many years ago a Christian clergyman named Alan Stubbs, at St Johns Church in Macquarie Street, Hobart, gave a sermon on Philippians 4 verse 6.

The verse says don't be anxious about anything, whether it's domestic pressures, a sudden catastrophe or you're a street kid or a battler with nine kids, barely living off the pension and Family Tax Benefit.

It's pretty hard to be cool in the face of a strong chance your drunk partner is about to thump you, the bank wants to foreclose on the house, or the doc breaks it to you that you may have early stages of cancer.

The Muslim turns to Allah, the Christian still worries about being forsaken and the Buddhist seeks a level of nirvana-like enlightenment.

Hindus are said to have 33 million gods, so maybe one of them is able to soothe human anxiety with sustained peace, calm and rest.

Hindus and Buddhists often employ the natural tranquillity drug called yoga, where you can Om-chant your way into a state of passive euphoria.

The atheist knows how to chill, but facing absolute calamity the atheist knows their luck can run out.

The atheist refuses to entertain a vision of God drumming His fingers, waiting for a cry for help.

The agnostic has an each-way bet.

Maybe God can provide sanctuary from stress and threats, or maybe God is a figment of my imagination and I reached the sanctuary on my own.

You never know with agnostics.

Indeed, religion has a herculean task, a quest to discover the haven of Bilbo Baggins' Rivendell, the psychological eye of the storm or call it the refuge in the monastic cloister.

In a world so harassed and hurried and so complicated, religion wants to convince the planet that inner peace is at hand and stormy waters can be calmed.

Redemption aside, what fascinates me is that tucked away in the scriptures there's a verse focused on mental health.

I don't know why I'm so surprised, even shocked.

Maybe it's a relief to know the church is more than high priests, fancy robes and rituals, and that the challenge is realising you won't shrug off fear and anxiety by tugging at your bootstraps.

A quarter of Australians suffer from heightened levels of anxiety. Of these people 66 per cent drink alcohol, 47 per cent take recreational drugs and 45 per cent smoke.

They indulge in these risky pursuits because of their stress levels, usually to do with lack of money or loss of a loved one, which can lead to illness, misery and eventually the chance you might perish.

So, the Bible has something to say about the risks of stress, worry, adrenalin, fear, paranoia and mental health, and whether or not this revelation can head off the looming heart attack, stroke or nervous breakdown.

This is what struck me about the Stubbs sermon in 1970.

It's why I can't be an atheist, because inner peace and calm in an atheist's life is transitory, and pointless unless you just won Lotto.

The atheist's next secular meltdown is always going to be just around the corner, while the cumulative effect in an atheist's middle age is the risk of the body succumbing to years of stress and high blood pressure.

So, I'm happy to take a Biblical Bex and a lie down because it makes sense that you can survive a world of manufactured stress and fear if you can take Philippians 4:6 at face value and relax before your highly strung personality starts thinking about it.

A few years ago an old friend took his life and I've often reflected on what went through his mind that morning.

I can't begin to imagine such a state of mind, so fixed on extinction as the solution to a lifetime that just got too complicated and depressing.

As a typical crazy, mixed up kid my life was fairly average and pretty challenged in 1970 but I walked out of that Stubbs sermon with a prescription for at least coping with stress.

It's reassuring to know there's a painless alternative to the option of a summary death by suicide, where you get to live and even live well.

If you need help call Lifeline on 13 11 14, Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636 or the Mental Health Services Helpline on 1800 332 388