As human beings, we are unique among God's creation.  We are the only creatures of God who worship Him, and yet we are also the only ones who worry.  When you consider the fact that we carry yesterday's guilt, today's stress and tomorrow's anxiety all wrapped into one big headache it is no wonder that we worry so much.  In the early years of our country, with life on the frontier so harsh, our forefathers died from being all worn out, but today we die from being all wound up.

     We live in a troubled world, and consequently we let the world trouble us.  We worry about how to acquire, keep and spend wealth.  We worry about what we have and we worry about what we don't have.  We worry about what we said and we worry about what we didn't say.  We worry about what we did and what we didn't do.  We worry about the past, the present and the future.  We worry about our marital status, our bodies, our souls, our families and our jobs.  In short, we worry about everything.

     Our television sets almost instantly bring all the world's problems into our living rooms on a daily basis.  If the television doesn't, the internet will.  Our newspapers are headlined with crime, corruption, tragedy and every worry known to man, and that is just the sports and entertainemnt section.
     How do we cope with all our fears, worries, anxieties and depressions?  There is only one true way and that is by practicing and living the words taught by Jesus of Nazareth.  Jesus addressed himself to the routine earthly matters of life such as food, clothing and shelter.  Jesus did not prohibit the foresight and planning that commin sense demands.  However, He did forbid our anxieties and the needless worries that so many of us carry with us on a daily basis.  God is concerned with the total man, religious and earthly. 

     Jesus forbids us to worry.  In both Matthew 6 and Luke 12, Jesus tells us not to be anxious about food, clothing and shelter.  Jesus plainly tells us that God cares for the birds of the air and the grass of the field and that God is much more concerned about us.  God knows our needs and Jesus commands that we not worry, that we be not anxiouis.  Worry comes from a lack of faith and trust in God.

     If God cares for the lesser creatures like the birds, then surely He cares for you and me.  Birds cannot store up food or drink, they do not engage in agriculture.  They do not plant, reap or sow, but God supplies all their needs.

     We need to come to understand the futility and faithlessness of worry.  Worry cannot recall the past, change the future or help the present.  Worry only serves to produce ulcers, stress, constrict blood vessels and diminish faith.

     In Philippians 4:6, Paul says, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God."  In other words, "Worry about nothing, pray about everything, and be thankful for all things."

     The way to worry about nothing is to pray about everything.  You see, everything that concerns us concerns God.  If we do not pray about everything, we will find ourselves worried about most things.  God answers every Christian's sincere prayer, either removing the cause of worry or giving us the grace to bear it as He did Paul.

It's something to think about. -tp