Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions
and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns.
Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for
good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ
displaces worry at the center of your life.
Philippians 4:6-7 MSG
Philippians 4:6-7 MSG
I love this passage of scripture
transliterated in The Message. It
makes it pretty clear that worry is not something a Christian should do.
The
wife of a Federal District Court Judge found the perfect green tie to match one
of her husband’s sport coats a clearance sale.
A little later, the couple was relaxing at a resort to get his mind off
a complicated cocaine conspiracy case.
He noticed a small round disc sewn into his tie. He thought it was
suspicious and called the local FBI, who was equally suspicious that it might
be a bug planted by the conspiracy defendants.
The agent sent the device to FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, for
analysis. A few days later the judge
phoned Washington to find the results of the tests. He was told, “We are not
sure where the disc came from, but we discovered that when you press it, it
plays Jingle Bells.”
Quite often we find ourselves worried
about matters that we need not worry about at all. As Mark Twain said, “I am
an old man and have known many troubles, but most of them never happened.” There have been repeated studies that show
that most of the things we worry about are not legitimate worries. What they discovered was that only 2% of the
things we worry about are real and 98% of the things we worry about are a
complete waste of time and fruitless.
What
do we mean when we talk about worry? The
Greeks thought of worry as something that tears a man in two and drags him in
opposite directions. The Latin word
suggests a turbulent force responsible for turmoil within. The Anglo-Saxon word is descriptive of a
power gripping a man by the throat as a wolf seizes a sheep and strangles all
the vitality out of it. The term
“anxiety” comes from the same root as anger and suggests the idea of
choking.
In
Philippians 4:6 in the KJV we read, “Be careful
for nothing.” The word
“careful” means “to be anxious.” It is a command not to be worried. The force of the words is that we are to stop
worrying and we are not to worry about one thing.
How
sad that we continue to allow ourselves to participate in such a damaging
action! The work of worry makes us feel
that we are accomplishing something therefore we put more and more energy into
it. We even recruit others to join us
and trouble their lives while neglecting the real action of faith that can
overcome our worries.
William
G. Channon said: “Worry is entirely unscriptural. As Christians we have
taken the precepts of the Scripture for our standard of living. We look upon
the Bible as our final court of appeals in all life’s details. Who can deny
that within its pages no warrant is found for worrying?” Don’t waste today worrying about what you
cannot change from the past or what might happen in the future. If you are ok at the present, trust God to
keep you that way in the tomorrows of life.
Scripture to Claim
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Colossians 3:15 NASB
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Colossians 3:15 NASB
