Worried about trusting

by Berry D Simpson

Is it always bad to worry about
stuff? People say that 90% of what we worry about never happens, but isn’t that
an argument in favor of worry? As for me, I worry about things all the time.
It’s just that I do my worrying on the inside, to myself, so it isn’t obvious
to everyone else.

I recently attended Pantego Bible
Church with my daughter and son-in-law, Katie and Drew, and in their Community Group
(I would call it Sunday School), we talked about our tendency to worry, and
about Jesus’ admonition from Matthew 6.

 “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about
your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more
than clothes? Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry
about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (from Matthew 6:25 and
34, NIV)

The problem I have with this verse
is that I don’t know how to stop worrying on command. To tell me to stop
worrying is like Cyndi telling me to “just relax” when we’re dancing. If I
could relax on purpose I would be relaxed already. Likewise, if I could simply
stop worrying, I would. I need a strategy, an activity to do, in place of
worry. Maybe it’s the same for you.

So the very next Monday morning I
read a great follow-up to our Sunday discussion about worry, from

Jesus
Calling, by Sarah Young: “Sit quietly
in My presence while I bless you. Make your mind like a still pool of water,
ready to receive whatever thoughts I drop into it. Calmly bring matters to me …
then simply do the next thing.”

Sarah Young gave two good strategies
for handling worry, the first was contemplative meditation. She said that instead
of trying to solve all the problems and work it out myself, I should settle my
mind and let God drop his thoughts inside. Wait for him to speak.

Here’s how it works for me. When I’m
buried by worries I often find myself praying, “Lord I don’t know what to do
with this, my attitude stinks, so I’m asking you to speak to me.” Then I start
writing in my journal, creating a dialogue, even argument, with myself, going
over all the worries I’ve had, and listing my own crazy solutions.

It’s important for me to physically
write these down on paper. Just thinking about them, or even talking about
them, doesn’t do the same thing. Over and over God speaks to me while I am
writing, while I have my pen in my hand scratching on paper. When I finish I’ve
written out ideas and solutions that had never occurred to me before I started
writing.

Another thing that happens: Sometimes
I hear from God directly. I would say I hear an audible voice but that’s too spooky
to put into print. But it happens in the most unlikely of places, such as in
the stairwell at my office, or cycling down Highway 191, or running on the dirt
roads near my house, or even in the shower at Gold’s Gym. It never comes all at
once and the solution is never what I expected, but there is no mistaking God
as the source.

Those two scenarios (writing in my
journal or hearing God’s voice) have happened so often I’ve grown to expect
them. Instead of worrying on my own, I’ve learned to relax into the process and
trust that God will indeed, speak to me again.

Curiously, this reminds me of when I
started reading Tom Clancy. With the first book, Hunt for Red October, I fell
into a predictable pattern: (1) I struggled through the first third of the book
trying to learn the characters and keep up with the threads; until (2) I
realized Clancy would remember the characters I needed to know so I relaxed and
enjoyed the middle third of the book; but (3) I would lay awake in bed half the
night trying to solve the rest of the puzzle and save the world. Eventually I
reminded myself that Clancy was better at figuring out the solution than I was,
and besides, he had already written the book. So I got out of bed and finished
the last third of the book that night. I let the expert tell me his story
instead of trying to figure it out myself. Instead of losing sleep worrying, I
lost sleep reading, which was much better.

And while you might think I would
remember this solution with the next Clancy book and avoid the sleepless nights,
I never did. I repeated the same entire sequence of trying to do it myself before
letting the expert handle it. At least a dozen times.

This is how I’ve learned to trust
God. When I find myself paralyzed with worry over an upcoming choice or
conversation or confrontation, I have to remind myself to trust the expert. God
has already worked out the story. Just let him tell me the details in his own
good time.

I wish I could say I remember this whenever
a new problem comes up, but I don’t. I repeat the same sorry sequence of trying
to do it myself before, finally, writing and listening and letting the expert
handled it.

Back to Sarah Young’s advice,
“Calmly bring matters to me (God) … then simply do the next thing.”

This is the tricky part. If I ask
God to speak to me, and I ask him to change my heart, I’m obligated to step
gingerly through the next opening, next idea, next pattern, or next attitude.
Seeking God only works if I’m willing to step through his openings into his
solutions.

QUESTION: How about you, how do you
cope with worry?

“I run in the path of Your
commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32