After all the reading and writing I’ve done since I started this blog, I found worrying is the topic that most worries us. Just this morning I found myself reading the the ticker tape running along the bottom of the screen while watching the news. The Dow closed above 13,000 yesterday, therefore, I thought, my day will be good. My bills are paid, so my day will be good. My taxes are done so I don’t have to worry about the outcome of that anymore, so my day will be good.
But what if any of these things were not as they are? What did I do before I paid my bills? Worried. What did I do before I did my taxes? Worried. What did I do when the Dow fell 200 points in one day? Worried. And now my new set of worries:
Boston daughter is moving this weekend and we all know how challenging moving anything, even our body to work, in Boston is. My book is being reviewed tomorrow by the Cape Cod Children’s Writers – need I say more about how that makes me feel? My air conditioner on my car cut out last week for a short time – $$$? The second floor eves of our house need attention – more $$$? And the list goes on……
My usual line of thinking, the way I lived my whole life, was “as soon as I solve all these problems my life will be perfect and I can stop worrying”. I made my daily goal to solve all my problems, get my ducks in a row, and then I will have peace. This daily goal soon took over my life and fixing things in a quest for rest and peace quickly became a life mantra. How bad is that? I lived to stop worrying. Once again I go back to what Dr. Phil asks me so often from the TV: “So…how’s that workin’ for ya?”. And, once again, the answer is the same: “Not very well”.
This past week I was searching YouTube for something else and I came across an Andy Stanley video on worrying. I love Andy Stanley. No other speaker ever reached me like he does. He speaks my language. He makes God real to me. He makes things out of the Bible that I’ve heard for years and deemed redundant, jump out and make me say “Wow!”. So you can imagine how excited I was to find out he had spoken about worrying. I quickly muted the TV and spent the next 20 or so minutes listening to the podcast. What was the striking truth I came away with? He said, “Jesus said, “Why do you worry? Do you think I don’t know you need food and a place to live? The pagans worry about these things. If you, too, worry about them, then you are no different than a pagan.”. Andy translated perfectly and I came away with the phrase locked in my head: “If you worry, you are acting like there is no God. Do you really think He doesn’t know about your needs?”. Wow. Yes, another “Wow, ah..ha” moment. I could tell Dr. Phil this works much better and once again he, too, is right – change your thoughts, change your life. Keep going down the same road, pounding on the same wall, – go insane.
This week I made “If you worry about that, it’s as if there is no God.” my new life mantra. So just now when the Dow floated along the bottom of my TV screen, I actually laughed. Imagine, the Dow predicting if I was going to have a good day. The Dow predicting if I was going to attain peace. Haha….that’s an “ah…ha” moment in itself.
To listen to Andy, put Andy Stanley Why Worry in the YouTube search. There are three parts. Part 1 is really funny, part 2 sets the concept, and part 3 drives it home. (Andy is non-denominational and speaks to all. His premise is that it’s not about religion – it’s about relationship.)
And so, as another day goes by, change your thoughts, change your life, and…I have written.
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