Worry – worry – worry. Some people are really worry-warts. They worry about the weather … they worry about exams … they worry about finances … they worry about grades … they worry about their health, their children, their parents, their friends … they worry!
J. Arthur Rank, the movie mogul, was a worry-wart. One day, he had an idea. He decided to do all his worrying on the same day each week. When anything happened that gave him anxiety, he would write it down and put it in his Worry Box. Each Wednesday, he would open the Worry Box and discover that most of the things that had worried him the other six days, were already settled and it would have been useless to worry about them.
Rank discovered what statisticians have learned — that most people worry about things that never happen – or that can’t be changed: 40% – the things never happen, 30% – the things can’t be changed, 12% – needless health concerns, 10% miscellaneous inconsequential concerns, 8% – real, legitimate concerns.
Scientists and medical professionals have proven that worry can be harmful – spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically. Jesus knew about this.
In the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, (Luke 12:22f), Jesus told his followers “Don’t worry about your life … can any of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your life span? If you’re not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest?”
And in The Message by Eugene Peterson, the same passage is translated: “Has anyone by fussing before the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? If fussing can’t do that, why fuss at all? Walk into the fields and look at the wildflowers – the lilies – they don’t fuss with their appearance. But have you ever seen colour and design quite like it? If God gives such attention to the lilies of the field, don’t you think He’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?”
Some think they can turn over some of their fears and concerns to God, but only some people, because others think they have problems that are so huge that they want to still have some control over them. And when they hang on to their problems, they worry!
We can all think of a hundred scenarios where worry and anxiety seem perfectly in order. Or, is it? Does it really boil down to “trusting”? Trusting God/the Creator/by-whatever-name-we-relate-to-our Higher Power?
When I lived on the Sunshine Coast, I had a lovely home snuggled into a rocky hill on almost an acre. Lots of woods and, I soon discovered, lots of carpenter ants who just loved my wooden home. I quickly found an exterminator who drilled holes inside my walls, promising that my problem would soon come to an end. “It may take a few days for the ants to disappear. I may seem for a time that you have have more of them. It takes a while for the insecticide to take effect. But, it will work.”
And, you know what? Within a week, the carpenter ant infestation was gone and though I did see an occasional ant, I trusted the exterminator and believed that he knew what he was doing.
A widow had reared six biological and twelve adopted children. In spite of her busy, hectic and troubled life, she was noted for her calm and peaceful manner. The reporter asked her “How, amidst all the poverty, work, sickness and responsibility, have you managed to have such a confident spirit?” She replied One day, a long time ago, I said to God, “I’ll do the work. You do the worrying.” I haven’t had a worry since.”
I like that. Let God do the worrying – why would I trust an exterminator more than I would God?
In a Hagar the Horrible cartoon, Hagar is shown talking to God saying “I pray, and pray, but you never answer me!” A monotone voice out of the cloud, supposedly the voice of God, said “Sorry if you can’t get through right away. Keep trying. These days, everyone wants to talk to Me.”
The Creator would never respond in such a fashion to our needs. When we call upon our Higher Power, there is no voice that gives us a multitude of frustrating instructions telling us to push the ‘pound sign.’ God doesn’t leave us talking to a computer voice and doesn’t have an answering machine either. God is *always* there, caring about what is causing us hurt, pain and anxiety.
Nine year old Travis had been badly burned in a housefire. He had a lot of time to think and wonder about his situation. One day, after enduring another painful series of exams and therapies, he asked his mom “Do you really think God is here?” His mother replied “Of course. It’s God who helps the nurses turn you and it’s God who created the medicines and this hospital and the doctors who are working to get you better.” Later that day, a stranger passed by Travis room. Seeing him all puffed up with the burns on his face and covered with layers of sterile gauze, the stranger said “Why does God punish a child like this?” Travis shouted back – “Don’t say that. Don’t say anything bad about God. When it hurts, God cries with me.”
Travis was right. When the World Trade Towers imploded, when disasters hit, when cancer robs us of loved ones, when we see injustices around us, when children are kidnapped, women abused, people become addicted, elderly people living on fixed incomes unable to afford nutritional food or housing, God is there, giving courage to get through the devastation, the grief, the sadness, the anger … the worry.
Maybe it would be a good idea for us to be like that creature on the Mad Magazine who said: “What? Me Worry?” Maybe we could make a Worry Box and see if the things we put into it each day for six days, are still of such urgent concern on the seventh day when we re-open the Worry Box. If we do, we’ll discover that most of the things we worried about in the previous six days aren’t things we’re worried about on the seventh!
ere
