This is what worry loves to do

Worry. It happens. We don’t like it, but it’s a part of life. 

Here’s what I’ve come to know about worry. Worry loves to make you question the past, fear the future, and doubt God in the present, so that you are forever frantic and mentally somewhere else.

Let’s break that down one idea at a time. 

First, it loves to make you question the past. These are events, decisions or mistakes that are behind you. Since they’re in the past, you can’t change them, even if you wanted to.

Second, worry loves to make you fear the future. We humans tend to fabricate worst-case-scenarios in our minds and then obsess about them—even though they will most likely never happen. 

Third, worry makes us doubt God in the present. Since we don’t always know the reason for why things are happening, we wrongly conclude that God must either be non-existent or incompetent. “Oh no, that means I have to solve all of these issues on my own!” 

Fourth, all of these factors come together to make us forever frantic and mentally somewhere else. Since we are spending so much time questioning the past, fearing the future, and doubting God in the present, we can miss that deep heart-rest that comes with walking alongside our Good Shepherd one day at a time.

In 1 Peter 5:6-7, the apostle writes: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” 

The word for “anxieties” is sometimes translated as “cares” or “worries.” The Thayer lexicon here says: “to be drawn in different directions.” The way the Greek is constructed tells us that casting all of our cares or worries on God is a part of what it means to be humble. When we don’t do that, it’s as if we are pretending that we know better, or that we can figure it all out based on our own strength.

Worry loves to make you question the past, fear the future, and doubt God in the present, so that you are forever frantic and mentally somewhere else.

Trust God and walk with him—here, now, today—casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

Notes:

-“Worry, Humility, and an Antidote to the Devil.” Click here. Sermon.

-“Why do we say The Apostles’ Creed in church?” Podcast episode and blog. Click here, or find it on ‘The Pulse Podcast with Matthew Ruttan’ (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, etc.)

-Bible quotes, ESV.