Turn worry into hope by focusing on God

Worry is a crippling phenomenon. I know I tend to worry over life in general and I think I am not alone.

Those areas of worries that consume people are health, finances, family and jobs. In this life we do have many trials and there are plenty of areas for worry.

I read last week an excerpt from the book The Essence of Success by Earl Nightingale. He made a good point about the subject of worry when he wrote:

“According to the Bureau of Standards, ‘A dense fog covering seven city blocks, to a depth of 100 feet, is composed of something less than one glass of water.’

“So, if all the fog covering seven city blocks, 100 feet deep, were collected and held in a single drinking glass, it would not even fill it. And this could be compared to our worries.

“If we can see into the future and if we could see our problems in their true light, they wouldn’t tend to blind us to the world, to living itself, but instead could be relegated to their true size and place.

“And if all the things most people worry about were reduced to their true size, you could probably put them all into a drinking glass, too.”

And how true that is. The areas we worry about are not that significant. We just make them momentous by worrying. So are those areas of worry really worth it?

When John Scott, our son, was so sick, suddenly my day-to-day worries paled and were so insignificant in the light of his situation. I had in the past worried about health. But when John Scott became ill, I would have gladly given up my health and would have willingly and gladly accepted a health condition from God and died in John Scott’s place. I said many times: Take my life Lord … leave him.

At times I have worried about our security and the basics of life. Yet when John Scott became sick, I would have been willing to live in depravity for the rest of my life if he could have been well. I would have lived out my days in a tent and would have accepted being reduced to bread and water if only he did not have that illness and he could live. I would have given up it all for John Scott.

I saw all that we possessed was meaningless in the light of John Scott’s situation.

So it was in that Dallas hospital, holding vigil by John Scott’s bed, that I realized the insignificant things I worry about from day to day are not really worries. They were strictly figments of my worry imagination and not worth the time and energy I spent dwelling on them.

I realize that worry does not change a thing: no days are added to our lives and no circumstances change due to worrying. When we have no control, we cannot change tomorrow in any way by worry.

But there is hope. The solution is to thank God for the blessings we do have and then turn those areas of worry over to God.

Think about today: Things could be much worse. Remember the areas you choose to worry about are out of our control anyway. What will happen, will happen. We just need to make sure we have the certainty of God in our lives.

Remember two constants when you are tempted to worry. First the God of the entire universe loves you and promises that he will be with you. Remember that God is faithful and his promises are true.

“God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind ... Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?” (Numbers 23:19)

Second, God’s timetable is not your timetable. Sometimes God does not fulfill his promises on our particular timetables. But even then, God’s promises are still true. We just have to wait on God’s timing in our lives and not yield to worry in the meantime.

Hebrews 11:1 tells us: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Resolve to turn that worry into hope and then stand in faith by focusing on God and his promises.

Judy Brandon writes about faith for The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact her at: [email protected]