Worry

Worry

Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.

1 Peter 5:7

Robert Sapolsky is professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University and the author of Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. In this intriguingly titled book, he explains why humans suffer from stress-related illnesses.

When an animal in the wild faces danger it has two options—fight or flight. After fighting or fleeing, assuming it has survived the threat, the animal’s nervous system quickly calms down. Not so with us Homo sapiens. Though our physiological system is adapted for a fight-or-flight response, it can be activated by anxiety and chronically activated by chronic anxiety. As Sapolsky observes, “How many hippos worry about whether Social Security is going to last as long as they will, or what they are going to say on a first date?”^a Such worries overload the system, wreaking havoc on our bodies, pushing them into fight-or-flight mode when neither will solve the problem at hand. It’s like dialing 911 over and over, activating an emergency response though none is required.

Is it possible to deal with stress in a way that doesn’t activate a highly charged response? Fortunately the answer is yes. There are practical ways to keep anxiety at bay. Certainly for Christians, the most practical thing we can do is to follow Peter’s advice to give all our worries and cares to God. Some translations say that we should cast all our cares on God. I like that word cast, especially in connection with Peter, because he was a fisherman who knew what it was like to draw nourishment from casting his nets on the water.

The next time you feel anxiety rising in your heart, try this little exercise. Imagine yourself in a boat or standing on a pier, fishing pole in hand. Now bait the line with whatever is bothering you. Put the passage from 1 Peter 5:7 in your own words, perhaps something like this: Father, I want to cast this problem on you because I know that you care about what happens to me. Then picture yourself casting out your line, watching as it is swallowed up in the sea of God’s love.

Lord, I want to stop worrying and start trusting. Help me break the habit of worry by replacing it with a habit of prayer.

^a Robert M. Sapolsky, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers (New York: Henry Holt, 2004), 5.