Worrying

Have you ever watched a dog "worry" a bone? He grabs it, shakes it with his teeth, gnaws and growls, and makes a great show of mangling it. And the bone? It doesn't do anything. All the fuss is created by the worrier.

It's probably no accident that the anxious mental process in which we sometimes engage is also called "worrying." Actually, the circumstances themselves have only the significance we assign to them. When we empower them by our persistent recognition of them and our concentration on them, they are continually able to harass. All of the fuss is created by us!

This is not to minimize the legitimate concerns that we face, sometimes on an every-day basis. But worrying does not really address those concerns. Corrie ten Boom is credited with saying, "Worry is a cycle of inefficient thoughts whirling around a center of fear." All of our "shaking and growling and mangling" of the problem accomplishes nothing. Jesus asked, "Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? And if worry can’t accomplish a little thing like that, what’s the use of worrying over bigger things?" (Luke 12:25, 26)

My personal paraphrase of I Peter 5:7: "Give to God all the things you keep gnawing on and the things you try to scare away by growling. He cares about you!"

MaryMartha
(All rights reserved)

Scripture quotation is taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. United States of America. All rights reserved.

Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com