Is it Possible to Stop Worrying

Worry

Worry is one of the most common and frustrating human experiences. It would seem that there is an almost endless supply of things to worry about. We worry about bills, about our health, our children, our job, our friends, our future, our past, and on and on it goes. I don't believe that God ever intended for us to be plagued and overcome by feelings of anxiety and worry. Paul said in Philippians 4:6 “Be careful for nothing . . .”The word careful is used in the sense of being full of care. In other words, nothing should be permitted to fill our thoughts and emotions with fear and worry.
 

What did Jesus Say About Worry?
 

In the sixth chapter of the gospel of Matthew, Jesus addresses himself to the subject of worry. There he says:

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body more than raiment?
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much ye much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they sow not neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore if God so adorn the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
Therefore take no thought saying, What shall we eat? Or, What shall we drink? Or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed. (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek.) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

           Matthew 6:26-34

An understanding of this portion of scripture will help us win the victory over worry. 
 

Worry is Useless.
 

Jesus said: “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?”

In other words, worry in itself changes nothing. It is a completely unproductive activity. No one ever went to bed worrying over a problem and found that his restless night had done anything to solve it. Sometimes we wake up in the morning and found that our problem has gone away or solved itself, but it is not due to our worry. The reason some of our problems seem to vanish with the morning light is the problem did not actually exist to begin with. If we would be honest with ourselves, we would have to admit many of the things we worry about exist only in our imagination. They are like nightmares without any real substance. Many hours of counseling are spent trying to help people whose only real problem is an overactive imagination. Even when everything was going well, they were worried that it wouldn't last. They kept themselves in a constant state of depression over nothing.

“My life has been full of terrible misfortunes
most of which never happened”
                                                                                                     Michel de Montaigne

Someone has said: “As the years went by, I gradually discovered that ninety-nine percent of the things I worried about never happened.” Insurance companies make millions of dollars out of the tendency of people to worry about things that rarely happen. Considering the phantom nature of many of our worries and given the fact that worry in itself changes nothing, we would do well to give up this useless activity.

 

Worry is Harmful
 

Worrying in advance over problems that might arise has a detrimental effect on those who practice it. Doctors tell us that a person's attitude plays a large role in determining how quickly he recovers from an illness or surgery. The person with a cheerful outlook and a bright disposition usually improves much more rapidly than the person in the bed next to him who sees everything from a negative point of view. The truth of the matter is that anxiety and worry and the tension it causes not only hinders some recoveries but is actually the cause of many illnesses.
 

“You don't get ulcers for what you eat,
you get ulcers from what eats you”

 

Worry is not only useless, but it is also harmful, it injures its victim. Heart problems, high blood pressure, ulcers, migraine headaches, all of these are the price your body pays for violating scriptural principles concerning worry.

“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

What Jesus is saying is that some trouble is bound to come, but let's not live in the constant expectation of it. The old adage, “Cowards die a hundred deaths, the brave but one,” holds true here.

 

“Never trouble trouble until
trouble troubles you”
                                                                 Bob Jones Sr
 

“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow,
it empties today of its strength.”
                                                                    Corry Ten Boom

 

Worry destroys our confidence, it quenches our spirit, it fills our minds with thoughts of gloom and despair. This ought to be reason enough to occupy our minds with other matters.

Finally, brethren, if there be any praise, if there be any virtue, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report: think on these things.
                                                                                                       Philippians 4:8-9

 

Worry is unworthy
 

To engage in worry is unworthy of your position as the highest of God's creation. The lilies of the field and the fowls of the air don't worry and yet God looks after them. Jesus said, “Rest assured that if God provides for the least of His creation, He is also going to take care of you."

“I have been young, and now am old: yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.”

Psalms 37:25

Jesus said that one human soul is of more value than all the world. As the crown of God's creation, worry is beneath us.

Said the robin to the sparrow, I should surely like to know, why the foolish anxious Christians rush about and worry so.

Said the sparrow to the robin, I think surely it must be, that they have no heavenly Father, such as cares for you and me.

Worry accuses God
 

In admonishing us not to worry Jesus reminds us: “Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.”If you are a born again child of God you have a heavenly Father who by that very title has committed Himself to supply your needs. Worry assumes that either God does not know, or does not care about my circumstances. It's a slander on God's ability to be a good Father and provide for His own. A friend of mine had this point driven home to him one day as he watched his children playing. He had just lost his job and he had let his worries and doubts get to him. He spent most of the morning worrying over how he was going to pay the bills and put food on the table and so forth when he noticed his two little girls playing a game together seemingly without a care in the world. He said, “I thought to myself, they are in the same boat I am in, but they are happy and I am miserable.” Then the reason for their lack of worry came to him. It was simple. They knew that daddy had always taken care of them in the past and regardless of circumstances, daddy would continue to take care of them. “What a fool I have been. The reason why I was miserable and half sick with worry was because I hadn't been trusting my heavenly Father the way they trusted their earthly father.” If you are a child of God, He is going to take care of you. He knows what our needs are better than we do and HE WILL SUPPLY THEM. Let's not accuse our heavenly Father of being an unkind or an uncaring father. Let's put away doubt and worry from our hearts.

Worry is earthly
 

It takes our thoughts away from heaven and directs them to things below. The answer for worry is: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness . . . ”
 

In order to avoid being downcast,
we must learn to upcast

 

Learn to trust God's righteousness. Let me break this down for you: trust God's right-ness. Trust that what God is doing is right for you. Trust that whatever God is doing in your life is because He has your best interests at heart. He is giving you exactly what you need at exactly the right time. The person who worries most is the person who does not see God's hand in anything.

That brings us to the final point . . .
 

Worry is heathenish
 

“For after all these things do the Gentiles seek.” Worry represents an attitude of mind that is foreign to the kingdom of God. It lowers the thinking of the redeemed to the standards of the lost. It presents us with a person that in his standing is a born again child of God, but his thinking is that of a heathen. He is acting as if he were a spiritual orphan. He acts as if he has no recourse but his own reasoning. For him, prayer is an unsatisfactory alternative, trusting God seems foolhardy. The only thing left for him to do is worry. And worry is USELESS, HARMFUL, IT'S UNWORTHY, IT ACCUSES GOD, IT'S EARTHLY, AND ITS HEATHENISH. As children of God, there is no need for us to engage in the sin of worry. God does care about you, He is interested in your concerns, He will answer your prayers, and God will supply your needs. What you and I need to do is stop worrying and start trusting.

 

Tomorrow's Bridge
Tomorrow's bridge as I look ahead
is a rickety thing to view;
its piers are crumbled, its rails are down'
its floor would let me trough.
The chasm it spans is dark and deep
and the waters foam and fret.
I have crossed that bridge a thousand times,
though I have never reached it yet.
It has crashed beneath to let me through
although it's miles away.
But strange, the ones that I have crossed
have all been safe today.
Perhaps I shall find when I reach the one that lies in the distant blue,
some hand may have mended its rickety floor,
and its piers will be staunch and new.
And I can pass over, lighthearted, free
as a bird on the buoyant air;
Forgive me God for my fearful heart
may anxious and foolish care.

                                                                                                     David Combs