Worry: Wasted Energy

Neal Pollard

I have concluded that worry is wasted energy.  Taking Gary to register for his fall classes last Thursday, we left at a time when Houston was experiencing a series of severe thunderstorms.  Our 5:50 AM flight from Denver to Houston left the ground closer to eight o’clock.  That meant that our hour connection time had long since evaporated and United was good enough to book us seats on the next flight to Mobile, Alabama.  Since it’s approximate 84 miles between each gate at Houston, it took us a while to get over to the gate for our connecting flight.  When we got there, the Customer Service desk was about 84 miles long!  Gary and I pitied them as we walked to B84, only to find out our new flight was canceled.  That kicked off over two hours of phone time with United’s Customer helpline.  Bad weather caused massive delays, cancellations, and out of place planes and crews.  We needed to get Gary to College Bound and the clock seemed to be sprinting.  We checked everything–Pensacola, Fort Walton Beach, Atlanta, Birmingham, Huntsville, Jackson, Meridian, Gulfport, and Montgomery (our final destination).  Nothing was there!  We were on award tickets, which further complicated what seats were available.  I have not always been patient in such circumstances, but I strove to handle each phone call or face to face with service or gate agents with a smile and sympathy.  When it seemed we’d have to take up residence in Houston, a sweet lady at B17 (which is approximately 484 miles from B84) found two seats on our original connection flight.  It had been sitting at the gate all this time (over at A12; you can do the math).  So, with just three hours of delay, Gary and I boarded the plane and even got much better seats.  I was able to visit with a religious man reeling from a recent, unwanted divorce and Gary was able to talk about the church to a “really pretty” young woman.  Everything with the weekend worked out just fine (I will tell you later about the nearly three hour delay while the ground crew changed a tire on the connection back to Denver).

What’s the point of this meandering musing?  What would worry have done in this case?  Gotten us to our destination faster?  Resolved the situation at all?  Yet, too often, these kinds of stressful situations bring out our worst.  We lose our temper.  We rail at others, and usually our victims are as powerless as we are.  We blow out our Christian lights.  I pray that I have been sufficiently reminded of the futility of worry for the next time an opportunity arises.  Instead, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Phil. 4:6).  Jesus calls worry futile (cf. Lk. 12:25; Mt. 6:25-34).  Let us trust that He knows best!

Carrying The Sky On Your Shoulders

Greek Mythology has always been interesting to me.  Even though these characters are fictional, one that always stands out is Atlas.  Atlas is known best for being punished by Zeus to stand on the earth and to carry the sky and heavens on his shoulders (Wikipedia).  What an enormous burden Atlas was forced to bear.

It’s funny how easy it is to relate to Atlas at times.  When problems pile up, it feels like we are carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders.  We become so bogged down with worries about money, health, family, and life.  We lose jobs, possessions, and worst of all, people close to us.  On top of all of this, we deal with our spirituality and wrestling with the question, “What will happen when I die?”  At times life becomes so burdensome that it seems overwhelming.

Certainly this feeling is not new to our generation.  This is why the words of Scripture are so appealing.  1 Peter 5:7 says to “cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.”

Bringing God into our lives is a breath of fresh air and a weight lifted off our shoulders.  God never promised that life would be problem free, but He does tell us that He is willing to help.  The problem is that we get stubborn and try to bear the load alone.  We might be able to bear some of the stress and worry of life, but we cannot carry the weight of sin and walk with God at the same time. 

God is offering to share the burden with us.  He wants to help with the worries and stresses of life (Matthew 6:25-34), but more importantly, He wants to take care of our burden of sin (Acts 2:37-41; 1 Peter 3:21; 2 Peter 3:9; Matthew 11:28-30).  We can’t bear this load for long.  Let’s bring God deeper into our lives and let Him help with our burdens.

“The” Secret to Better Health

“In The Anatomy of an Illness: As Perceived by the Patient, Norman Cousins tells of being hospitalized with a rare, crippling disease.  When he was diagnosed as incurable, Cousins checked out of the hospital.  Aware of the harmful effects that negative emotions can have on the body, Cousins reasoned that the reverse was true.  So he borrowed a movie projector and prescribed his own treatment, consisting of Marx Brothers films and old "Candid Camera" reruns.  It didn't take long for him to discover that 10 minutes of laughter provided two hours of pain free sleep.  Amazingly, his debilitating disease was eventually reversed.  After the account of his victory appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, Cousins received more than 3,000 letters from appreciative physicians throughout the world” (Today in the Word, MBI, December 18, 1991).

It really is amazing what a change in attitude can do for us.  Cousins went from “incurable” with negative emotions, to “completely cured” because of laughter and positive emotions.  Many studies have shown that worry, anxiety, and similar negative emotions are very bad for a person’s health.

Similarly, God has told us things like, “Be anxious for nothing…” (Philippians 4:6), and “Do not worry…” (Matthew 6:31).  When the Lord commanded these things it wasn’t just because He wants us to trust and rely on Him, He was sharing with us the secret to better health.  Trusting and relying on God is actually good for us!

No one should be more happy, worry free, and at ease in life than a Christian who trusts in the Lord.  As Paul stated so well, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).  For Christians, the end of this life simply means eternity in heaven.  What an encouraging and stress reducing statement!

The benefits of trusting and having a relationship with the Lord are limitless, but it’s nice to know that it is actually healthy for us to be close with Him.  This only leaves us with one question: Have we been full of worry and anxiety, or have we been putting our trust in the Lord?

My Little Girl

Many a time my family has walked around the streets,

Never really knowing what kind of people we will meet.

We’ve seen people who are busy, sad, and anxious about life,

Even Christians who are filled with worries and strife.

But still, my little girl will jump, and bounce, and sing, and play,

Take my word for it, this is how she is every day.

She walks around with her face aglow,

Being peaceful and happy, not afraid to let it show.

My little girl will talk, smile, and laugh with a stranger,

Clearly not aware of what we view as danger.

These people will light up at her cute little face,

Briefly forgetting their troubles in this place.

How could her attitude be so cheerful?

It’s because she has no real reason to be tearful.

My little girl has not yet learned to play life’s stressful game,

Getting caught up in things that cause us lose our aim.

There are some Scriptures we often repeat

“Unless you become like Children, the Lord you shall not meet.”

“To be great, you must become like a child.”

These are requirements not to be taken so mild.

Learning to be like a child is a great thing to do,

Even when everything in this life looks so blue.

People want to go to heaven, this we know,

To do this we need to let our inner child grow.

Let’s seek to be cheerful and happy, innocent and pure,

Then the troubles of life we will be able to endure.

Let’s be more like children when the winds of life swirl.

What a great lesson to learn from my little girl.

Scripture – Matthew 18:1-4