Mt 6:25, 27, 32,
33,34 Therefore I say to you do not
worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your
body, or what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more
than clothing? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? For
your heavenly Father knows you need all these things. But seek first the
kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be add to you.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own
things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
It has been said if you are going to worry then don’t pray
and if you are going to pray then don’t worry. Like anything else we can’t have
it both ways. We can’t have our cake and eat it too as they say. When God tells
us to not worry about tomorrow then we shouldn’t worry about tomorrow.
The hard part about not worrying is not worrying. That makes
a lot of sense doesn’t it? But it’s true. From a person who has the tendency to
worry it’s hard not to when you have been in situations before and you know
what is coming. For example, the wife waiting for her drunk husband to come
home. She knows his abusive behavior and therefore anticipates what is to come.
She worries about what degree of cruelty his behavior will be that particular
night.
In such a case it’s hard not to worry. To her I guess you’d
have to say, “just trust in the Lord. That no matter what degree of severity
your husband’s behavior is the Lord will be watching over you.” You could also
look at it in the aspect that worrying is not going to change what is to come.
Worrying about how he will behave won’t change his behavior. We can anticipate
perhaps what is to come but keep our eyes on Jesus instead of what we fear are
approaching.
Perhaps together we can figure out what we can do to avoid
worrying about something like this and prepare ourselves in a better way. We
may not know what we should be doing but we definitely know what we shouldn’t
do and that is 1) worry 2) Get mad 3) run from it 4) Hide from it 5) Give in.
Just making up our minds before the return of the alcoholic spouse that we are
not going to do any of these things gets us ahead on the behavior we are after
in Christ.
Have you ever heard, “I’m sorry I can’t help but worry about
it?” Often we look at worrying as our sacred right or duty. That if we don’t
worry about something then we don’t care. These are lies from Satan we need to
stay away from. It takes us out of the healthy balance we need to maintain in
our lives.
We may worry about our child who is driving over the
mountain pass for the first time or about grandma who was diagnosed with
cancer. These are things that are natural for us to worry about or be concerned
over. It’s when we take it too far and stop trusting in Jesus as we try to borrow
from tomorrow even more worries then we’ve gone too far. We just need to make
up our minds that we are going to pray and leave it all in the hands of the
Lord and trust Him to deal with it as He sees fit.
“Well what if my alcoholic husband hits me or grandma’s
cancer gets worse?” We still are required to trust. Worry about these
situations will not change them one bit but trusting God will. God may not see
fit to stop the alcoholic husband or cure the cancerous grandma but we need to know
in our hearts He knows best. Being concerned is great but worrying beyond our
ability to trust in God is not a good thing.
We need to exercise our faith instead of allowing our
worries to flop us around like a flag whipping in the wind that becomes tattered
and torn. Worry doesn’t add anything to the situation but usually more trouble
and each day has enough trouble of its own! Amen? Amen!!
**When I had epilepsy and had to deal with my stress
seizures I couldn’t worry about anything without having a seizure. If I wanted
to overcome my stress seizures and possibly be cured of my seizures I couldn’t
worry about nothing. Everything had to go straight into the hands of God
without me playing with it first for days and weeks on end. I had to
immediately hand it over to God and allow Him to take care of things. It took
five years of practice but I managed to get it done and the cure for my
epilepsy came as a reward for my efforts.
© 2012 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes
Publishing for COCWF
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