You can rise above worry (2)

Sat, 18 May 2024

‘Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding;’ Proverbs 3:5

When you honestly evaluate your worries, you will find you are doing these:

1) Forgetting that God is your friend. The psalmist said, ‘The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant.’ (Psalm 25:14 RSV). Friendship with God is built by sharing your life’s experiences with Him – every activity, every conversation, every problem, and every thought. When you don’t, you end up unaware of His presence, oblivious to His voice, resistant to His correction, and out of sync with His timing. And when you live that way, there is one inevitable result – worry!

2) Taking on things you shouldn’t. Scottish-American preacher Peter Marshall prayed: ‘Father … check our impulse to spread ourselves so thin that we’re exposed to fear and doubt, to the weariness and impatience that makes our tempers wear thin; [that] robs us of peace of mind; that makes skies grey when they should be blue; that stifles a song along the corridor of our hearts.’ You lose your song when you add the unnecessary pressure of maintaining your exterior image, increasing your pace to keep up with the Joneses, and trying to fix everybody or live up to their expectations.

3) Failing to understand the difference between the secular and the sacred. Either Jesus is Lord over every area of your life, or He is not Lord over any of it. We tell ourselves certain parts of our lives lie in the realm of God’s concern, but not others. The Bible says, ‘Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight’ (Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV). To live any other way is to live a worried life!