The Formidable Foe of Worry: It Takes and Never Gives

What has worry ever done for us except perhaps to give us an ulcer or high blood pressure? Worry demonstrates we believe we are in control and not God. If our thoughts and plans are carried away in excess and written in stone, they have within them the nature of sin as we seek to be the god of our lives. There is one (big “G”) God and we are not Him. We can plan – and it is admirable to do so – but God often changes our plans in the blinking of an eye. In Jeremiah 29:11- 14A (NIV) we discover: “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and will bring you back from captivity.’” And God’s plans will always be carried through. 

We are to avoid anxious care as taught by our Savior in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:25-27 (NIV): “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” Who indeed? This was earnestly taught by our Savior and reiterated by His apostles as well – God does not want us to worry, rather trust in Him – leaning not on our own understanding. He has our best interest at heart in all He allows and it behooves us to dwell on what He is teaching us which keeps us from imagining that we are wiser than God. His desire is to make us more and more like Jesus and He uses our life circumstances to bring this about. He is far more interested in making us like Jesus than making our sojourn easy and comfy in the here and now. Remember, earth is our passage, Heaven our home. 

Many are so comfortable here they don’t desire heaven at all. Remember as well, anxious care often leads to acts of sin. Fretting is never acceptable for the child of the King. We are to work with all our hearts as working for the Lord not for men but then we must calmly leave the results of our plans in God’s all-powerful hands and quit resorting back to human wisdom which is really no wisdom at all. Anxiety will make our love for the Lord grow cold making us doubt His loving kindness. And want of confidence in the Creator leads to our wandering away from Him.