Are You a Worrier?

Jesus in Matthew chapter 6, talks a lot about “taking thought” or “worrying” about your life. He ends his teaching with these words: “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” What is He saying here? He is not warning us against taking life seriously, having a thought-out life or looking ahead.  All of us should do that. He is really saying don’t allow the stress of tomorrow to rob you of your joy today. None of us were born with worry. It is an acquired trait we learn to do. This means whether you worry or not depends not upon your situation but upon you.  Whenever you are robbed of your peace and joy by worry it is always an inside job. In reality, all of us have the potential to worry. People of all classes do it: the ignorant, the educated, old folks, young folks, the irreligious and the religious. But I have found that there are two occasions in which we should never worry. First we should not worry about those things that we cannot help. We face a lot of situations we simply cannot avoid or control. Second, we should not worry about those things we can help. However you might be like the person that said, “I am going to stop worrying just as soon as I find the ideal situation.” This remedy will not work for three reasons: First, there is no ideal situation. Second, if there was an ideal situation the chances are that we would not get into it. Third, if there was an ideal situation and you and I were so fortunate to get into it, the first thing we would do is mess it up. So how do we deal with worry? You could try what one man suggested. Get a worry time such as Thursday at 5:00 p.m. and put all your worrying off until then. Get a worry room because you don’t want to do it all over the house. Get a worry chair; you certainly want to be comfortable. Finally, get a worry list so when anything comes up you can write it down and say I’ll worry about this on Thursday. The truth of the matter is if you did utilize this silly exercise you would find out that most of the list if not all would already be taken care of by the time your worry day arrived. Studies have proven that 75 to 90 percent of the problems we worry about are not legitimate concerns or never take place. That’s most likely why the humorist, Mark Twain said, “I’ve had a lot of problems in my life, most which never happened.” What was the prescription Jesus suggested we use to replace worry? “Seek the kingdom; focus on the King; realize that He knows all, sees all, and provides all. When we do this our lives will be so full of faith, there will be no room for worry.