I’m really good at worrying. I mean, really, really good. I can worry while I work, cook, clean, shop, bathe, even sleep. One morning this week I woke up from a very scary dream – about something I’d been worrying about.
You have to be very, very good at something to be able to do it in your sleep. So it’s official. I’m very good at worrying.
Sad thing is, I thought I’d conquered worrying. I came to Christ many years ago in large part because of my propensity to worry. As an 18-year-old high school senior, I worried about everything. The past, the present, the future. I’d worry about what hadn’t happened, what could happen, and what had happened.
My inability to control the circumstances of my life humbled me and made me realize how much I needed a great, big, powerful, loving God to control my life.
Shortly after I surrendered control of my life to God (he already had it anyway, but it was important for me to acknowledge this), I learned that worrying is a sin. Philippians 4:6 says: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”
So if God says, “Do not be anxious (i.e. worry),” and I worry, I’m sinning. And I really don’t want to sin. It hurts me. It hurts others. And it hurts God’s heart.
So, little by little, I learned to surrender to God the things that frightened me. And I found him faithful.
Most of the things I worried about never happened. Those that did taught me valuable lessons about God’s ability to care for and provide for me. Every time I trusted God with something instead of worrying, several things happened.
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