I recently told someone hurting to just take life one day at a time.. it is pretty good advice for most of us. Jesus Christ put it this way:
"Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes." [MSG]
Here is a related comment that I left on a friend's blog yesterday:
I sometimes go back to the divine impressions I felt when my wife’s legs were paralyzed as we cruised the Gulf.. the voice of the Spirit challenged me to simply flow with God in my life and not try to manage life like a work project.. to live in simplicity.Worry is a way that we try to control tomorrow.. we try to out-think future events and just get frustrated. I think that part of giving up control is simply living in the now and entrusting tomorrow to the grace of God.
It is really difficult for me most of the time.. I want to control.. but I think maybe simple things like joy and peace only come when we give up control.. maybe contentment only comes when we flow?
I'm a bit of a quote collector, and I found a few thoughts on worry to be helpful to me. I hope you'll like them as well:
ReplyDeleteWhen worry and fear are on the throne, you are not an open channel for streams of living water. It is impossible to listen to the Lord’s voice while listening to your own fear. – Corrie ten Boom
Learn to be concerned about today. Set a goal — and meet it. Don’t allow rumors or fear about the future to take over. Set aside a worrying time each week. And keep your worries for that time. List them. If they aren’t real, dump them. If they are real but outside your control, set them aside: they’re someone else’s problem. If they’re real and within your control, write down what you plan to do about them. Do it. – Leah L. Curtin
There is a great deal of difference between worry and concern, and we must realize this. Concern makes us do something to ease the situation. It moves us to take constructive action. But worry burdens our minds and bodies without helping us to find a solution to the problem. Worry is like racing the engine of an automobile without letting in the clutch. You burn energy, but you don’t go anywhere. – Corrie ten Boom
And I should want to say a particular word about the amazing adequacy of Christ. He is alive, and He is a Person, and He is within reach of you and me The best men and women I know owe everything to Him. He does not save them from the hard knocks that life brings to us all, surely by some design; but He saves them from bitterness, from rebelliousness, from the feeling of destitution and futility. When trouble comes, they do not worry, but rather wait for His full purpose to emerge through the trial He puts a purpose into life it never had before. He shares all its loads and its perplexities. He literally and actually stoops into my life to give me help in the hour of temptation, as often as I let him in. – Samuel M. Shoemaker
I've never understood the need to worry about something that may or may not ever happen. Living life immersed in worry and fear is no life at all.
ReplyDeleteA few quotes on fear.
"People living deeply have no fear of death." -- Anais Nin
"Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness." -- James Thurber
"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment." -- Marcus Aurelius
"Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear." -- Rosa Parks
"Worry gives a small thing a big shadow." -- Swedish proverb
When I was a Christian I would let go and let God, as the saying goes, but now I see it more as calming myself and focusing on the task at hand, and not sweating the small stuff.
Great quotes Sue and Mike!
ReplyDeleteJust wondering (smile).. do you sweat the big stuff Mike? I know I do :)
When the meteors are plummeting towards my house I do tend to sweat a little more, yes. ;-)
ReplyDeleteBut really if it's out of my hands there's no point in fretting.
Bob - I can't tell you how much this post spoke to me today. It was an answer to prayer. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI needed to read this as well. I just wish that I would have read it yesterday. =)
ReplyDeleteMy daughter has gone into the 6th grade. It is a new school with bigger challanges for her to face. She has a learning disability and takes change really hard. I did a lot of worrying and praying and then repenting for worrying. ha ha
Come to find out, I worried for nothing because her day went rather well today and they even gave her a new schedule in the morning. I thank God that she had a great day. She is growing up. =)