Worry: The Final Frontier

I find worry easy, do you? 

I don’t have to work very hard at it.  It is in my nature to worry.  I worry about my kids; getting them through college and beyond.  I worry about my hard-working, self-employed husband, my aging parents and whether we'll have enough money for all the upcoming expenses. I worry if we’re going to get enough rain this summer, about a friend who has serious heart problems and if my dog is going to be okay.

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Do you find worry easy?  What causes you to worry?

Worry comes in all shapes and sizes – sometimes it’s big things and sometimes it’s little things that propel us to worry.

But Jesus asks a compelling question, to those of us who are perpetual worrierers in Luke 12:25-26 (NLT) "Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?  And if worry can't accomplish a little thing like that, what's the use of worrying over bigger things?"

Has worry every accomplished anything in your life?  I can’t say it ever has in mine.  Have you been able to solve a problem, out of your control, by worrying about it?

So why do we worry? 

What do we show we believe about God when we worry? 

I never like to ask that kind of question because I find I don’t like the answer very much.

When we worry it shows that we believe God to be too small for our problems.  Our worry proves that we can’t TRUST God and that we think we can handle it better ourselves.   And the only way we know how to handle it is to worry!

But didn’t we just say nothing ever is accomplished through worry.  How oxymoronic can we be??

Later on in the passage, Jesus tells those who worry that they have very little faith.  I believe He’s saying that our faith is in direct proportion to how much we worry.   The more we worry, the less faith we have.  The less we worry, the more faith we have, because the only way to NOT worry is to TRUST.

So how do we break the cycle of worry and develop a stronger walk of faith?  Jesus has the answer in verse 31 of the same chapter of Luke.  He tells us to “seek His Kingdom”. 

When we turn our passions and plans over to God, when we let go of our need to control, when we surrender our way and seek His way, His will, God does something amazing!  He takes the worry and replaces it with a Faith that is strong and secure, that isn’t tied down to the fickleness of worry, it isn’t threatened by the storms that rage or the winds that threaten to carry it away.  It is FAITH that is based on a God that is GREATER.  Greater than anything we could ever hope or imagine!

I believe worry is one of the easiest traps for a follower of Jesus to succumb to; it is the sin we justify, rationalize and resign ourselves to.  We are more likely to surrender our selfishness, greed or a sharp tongue before we will even begin to look at this area of our life.  

But remember, worry shows clearly where our heart and our faith are at with God.  

So the next time you are tempted to worry, ask yourself . . .  if worry doesn’t accomplish anything, why am I choosing to do it?