Worry

I'm a worrier; I admit it. It's probably my worst sin. Most times I can release worry to the Lord and thus overcome it, but sometimes it gets the best of me. Jesus is pretty adamant about worry. He doesn't just advise against it; He commands us not to do it. (See Matthew 6:25-33.)It's more than just healthy advice for us. It's about idolatry and the compromising of our witness as Jesus-followers.

Evelyn Underhill approached it this way: "Fuss and feverishness, anxiety, intensity, intolerance, instability, pessimism and wobble, and every kind of hurry and worry - these, even on the highest levels, are signs of the self-made and self-acting soul...The saints are never like that. The share the great and noble characteristics of the great family to which they belong." (From The Spiritual Life.) Worry is actually a form of control. We assume that is we expend the energy of fretting over a situation, we will be the ones who control the outcome. In a way, that is to assume that we should sit where God sits. Also, if people living far from God see us consumed with worry, they don't see anything different than what they see in the rest of the world. They will have no motivation to become like us or to connect with the Jesus whom we claim to know.

So how do we avoid worry in this world of rising fuel and food prices, housing crises, increasing gaps between the haves and have-nots, medical costs skyrocketing, etc.? How do we paddle ahead into these dangerous rapids without worry?