Anxiety Free

Give your burdens to the LORD, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.

Psalm 55:22

CAN YOU IMAGINE HAVING absolutely no worries? Think about how much happier and freer and full of life you’d be. You’d be off the charts! It sounds a lot like heaven. It certainly doesn’t sound much like earth.

Sadly, life on this troubled planet is full of things that can tempt us to worry. In fact, it almost seems irresponsible not to worry. Unconsciously, perhaps, we figure that if we don’t worry, bad things will happen to us. We think that things will spin out of our (illusory) control and that we’ll suffer terrible consequences for our lack of concern and attention. But is that really true? Has worrying about something ever really helped? As Thomas Jefferson once wrote in a letter to John Adams, “How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened?” So true, and yet we fret.

Mr. Barrow, a character in a story by Mark Twain, offers some helpful advice: “Drag your thoughts away from your troubles—by the ears, by the heels, or any other way, so you manage it; it’s the healthiest thing a body can do.” The solution for Christians, of course, is to drag our worries to the Lord. Psalm 55:22 tells us to “give your burdens to the LORD,” and then leave them there! Every time you’re tempted to pick them back up again, remind yourself that you can’t carry them, that they only make you miserable, and that God is willing and able to handle what you can’t handle and weren’t designed to handle. You don’t have to worry.

BOTTOM LINE

Worry is useless and unnecessary. Cast your burdens on the Lord and trust in Him. He can handle them much better than you can!

Moment of Strength: 1 Peter 5:7