Turn Worry To Peace

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Recently  I was reading in “Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World” and Ms Weaver brought up the topic of worry.  This got me thinking you know..how worry creeps into our lives. My frequent health issues lately have people keep asking me if I am worried about our future. They wonder aloud to me that stress may play a role.   Worry is a known quantity in poor health.  Stress can play a significant role in one’s health.

Therefore, I have to admit.. there are times I wonder, because of the concerned folks in my life, that perhaps I am worried about our future. Sometimes I wonder that perhaps I am just deluding myself, but honestly, I don’t feel it.  The stress of the future bearing down on us, is something I don’t feel.  I DO get stressed about what my body is doing…because it bothers me greatly.  But does being bothered about something necessarily turn into stress?  What a person does when something bothers them, determines if they will be stressed about it, don’t you?

It brings me back to the question of worry and how it affects us and how it creeps into our lives.

In God’s word, we are told this “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.  Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”  Phil.4:6-7

How do we get to the point of not worrying?

Prayer

Easy enough eh?   Just pray.  Talk to God about everything.

So when I’m in out in the rabbitry and getting vexed because someone I’ve been talking with for more than six months about a trio of rabbits who YET AGAIN has cancelled on me… I have a choice, I can continue to be vexed (and with that worry) OR  I can talk to God about it.  And then options pop into my head, I’m aware that for today..I can handle three extra rabbits and I get a reminder that patience is a good thing to have.

When I’m having a shower and realizing the heat of the shower is making me feel icky so I get out and wonder if I’ll have feel normal again, or more likely… starting to fret that I’ll NEVER feel okay again and will become a burden on my family, I have a choice… will I continue to fret and worry and fear…. or will I say God?  Can you get me through THIS MOMENT?  Just this moment, not the future, just right now… hold my hand and get me through this moment. You know what happens?   He Does.  EVERY SINGLE TIME.

When hubby isn’t sleeping well, and I know some of it is lack of job-related, I have a choice.  My options are to sit and fret about it or I can … bet you can guess… I can talk to God about it.  I choose to talk to hubby about it, and rub his back, and remind him that he does have a calling, but that sometimes, just as in the days of Ezra, that calling needs to be set off to the side for a while.    It doesn’t always provide him with immediate relief, but it’s good to talk together and it’s good to talk to God eh?   

Prayer is Constant

I once counselled a friend, for whom worry and regret were a huge part of her life, bigger than it was for me AT THAT TIME, and she said: “but I talk to God but it changes nothing I just start worrying again”.  My response was to say … so talk to God some more, even if you talk to him 50 million times a day about every little fear and concern you have… just keep talking.  God tells us to pray constantly.. so this is just a part of it.   Don’t grab your worry back from him, take it to him, leave it with him and if another worry immediately replaces it.. give that over to him too.  Talk to him about it.

Thankfulness

Now, this is a part that I often forget and need to be more deliberate about… THANKFULNESS.   As I talk to God about my worries, my frets and also need to thank him.

I read a blog post a while back (and sorry I don’t remember whose it was) about a gal who dealt with worry. Her approach as she talked to God was to turn that worry into an opportunity to say thanks to God.   For instance, when she worried that they didn’t have enough food for supper she turned that into thankfulness for help given in the past.  Isn’t that awesome? 

I need to do this more often. I need to make it a point of my living day to day.   It is so good to see how God has worked in the past. It’s even better to how he continues to work in the present and how he does have my future covered.

I have learned that it is so true that when I talk with God more, and the more I am thankful to him, the more that God’s peace, which exceeds anything I can understand, will guard my heart and mind as I live in Christ Jesus.   This truth becomes more real to me the more I live it out.

So let worry slide away my readers… talk to God, thank him for everything that he has done, thank him in the moment that you are in… and for all the moments he will take you through.  Talk to him, praise him, and let his peace become a real part of you.

A Gift for You

A copy-work printable for you.  Click on the image, please.