September 2018: God’s Encouraging Word … when I’m worried

God’s Encouraging Word … when I’m worried

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. – 1 Peter 5:7

Erma Bombeck once told about Donald.  Donald was worrying about going to school.  Here is how he expressed his anxieties: “My name is Donald.  I don’t know anything.  I have new underwear…a loose tooth…and I didn’t sleep last night because I’m worried.  What if a bell rings and a man yells, ‘Where do you belong?’ and I don’t know?  What if the trays in the cafeteria are too tall for me to reach?  What if my loose tooth comes out when we have our heads down and are supposed to be quiet?  Am I supposed to bleed quietly?  What if I splash water on my name-tag and my name disappears and no one knows who I am?”

Worry about big things and little.  Worry about the future.  Worry about the past.  Worry about your finances…your family…your marriage.  What is it that transforms normal basic human prudence into worry?  Just this: the gut-level urge to assume the worst in every possible outcome.  Worry seems to have an office in hearts.  It never leaves and continues to send out reports about how things are going.  Its reports always paint the darkest pictures and project the worst.

You are literally worrying yourself sick over some situation over which you have no control.  How can you shut down the office of worry?  What can be said to help you lighten your load today?  First, you need to understand that worry is not based on an outer circumstance…but on an inner condition.  Worry comes not from what is happening to you on the outside…but from how you process it on the inside.

Shutdown worry by living in the present.  “Cast all your anxiety on him.”  You aren’t God.  You don’t know the future.  You may be worrying about something that will never happen.  You may be worrying about something that will resolve itself.  Focus simply on today.  Are you healthy at this moment?  Do you have enough to live on this moment?  Are your children well this moment?  Try not to anticipate what may never occur.

Here is the key.  “Cast your anxiety on him…because he cares for you.”  Shutdown the office of worry remembering Jesus cares for you.  How can you trust his care?  The righteousness that he wove in his perfect life…colored with his blood from the cross…was guaranteed to you the moment he rose victorious over death.  Like all people, you have failed so many times and so many ways to be who God wants you to be.  You could worry every minute of every day over your guilt!  But Jesus wants you to remember his righteousness!   That forgiveness and peace with God that you were given through Jesus’ death and resurrection!  You are forgiven!  At peace with God! Going to heaven!  Focus on this foremost thought: Jesus cares for you.