Grandma, don’t worry so much! Mom, it will be fine, don’t worry.
Growing up, I said those two sentences with significant frequency. That’s because I grew up in a family of worriers. I am incredibly thankful for the love I experienced from my grandparents and parents.
Sometimes Mom’s and Grandma’s love came in the form of worry. Now I am grown up, and there are days I really need to take my own advice.
Whether we are willing to admit it or not, anxiety plagues all of our lives. Why do we worry? It certainly isn’t any fun to worry. Nobody looks forward to having a stomachache or losing sleep. Nobody I know wants to be miserable, but that is how anxiety makes us feel. Then why do we worry? Do you know the answer?
As I ponder all the reasons I worry, like you, I have had plenty of good reasons to worry.
I keep coming back to the same root cause. I worry because I want control. Worry happens because deep inside each of us is the strongest desire to be in control of our lives and what happens around us. We don’t want bad things to happen to people we love. We don’t want people we love to have their feelings hurt. We don’t want them to be sad, and we don’t want to be sad. We want everything to be just like we think it should be.
Control is the reason we worry, and coming face to face with the fact that we are not in control of everything often causes us to worry. It fills our hearts and our minds with anxiety because we cannot make everything the way we want it to be. We worry because we cannot control what happens. I can’t control you, and you can’t control me. The honest truth is we can’t really control anything.
In Philippians 4:6-7 God teaches us about the solution to our worry. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanks-giving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all under-standing, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (NIV)
God is in control. We have the opportunity and the privilege to trust the only One who can do something about the things we worry about.
God is inviting you and me today to stop worrying. If you are looking for relief from your worries, then through prayer and petition, surrender everything to him.
