How Not to Worry

Introduction

Nobody has to teach us how to worry. It’s like one of those viruses that we all carry around, and if our immune system is compromised it can erupt into a violent fever. Because of how common worry is we can easily begin to treat it as merely a part of the furniture of our emotional life. But worry is not simply an emotion, it is a sin.

Worry is a Respectable Sin

Worry seems to us like the common cold. It might even be seen as commendable and praised as a twisted form of a devoted work ethic. But worry really is a violation of what God’s word commands for us.

Be careful/anxious for nothing (μηδὲν – Accusative Singular Neuter; and it ought to be translated as, wait for it…nothing). Philippians 4:6

The foolishness of man perverteth his way: and his heart fretteth against the LORD. Proverbs 19:3

Psalm 37 commands us to fret not because of evildoers:

Fret not thyself because of evildoers.
Fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.
Fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.

Reasons we Worry

There can be a number of reasons why worry takes us by the throat. Worry takes advantage of our circumstances and our uncertainties. Worry takes advantage of our passage through time to churn up a whole sludge of events to consume our minds with concerns.

Past – Unconfessed sin; embarrassing mistakes, harm done to us.
Present – Lack of faith in God’s sovereignty in governing and ordaining our particular set of present circumstances.
Future – Idolatry by concluding you should carry your burdens with no reference to God’s promised care and provision for you. Worry looks at the future with arrogance, convincing you to think you can discern the future which only God knows.

Furthermore, when you look at what Scripture teaches about worry is that it often comes side by side with a warning against a sin which is in a symbiotic relationship with worry: envy. Envy is the practice of ungodly comparison, and worry is the tag-along. you can see how this ungodly comparison can enflame all sorts of worries:

How do I get what those wicked people have?
How do I keep those wicked people from hurting me?
How do I get revenge on those evildoers?
How do I get the ungodly to like me or ignore me?
How do the evildoers get away with their sin, but I have to do what the Bible tells me to?

How to Overcome Worry

First, you must do your duties with Gospel joy. Imagine that you are tasked with carrying a bag of feathers up a hill. Worry is insisting that you need to add an unnecessary brick or two. Will it help you go faster? No. Will it accomplish what you were assigned? No. Will it increase your joy? No. God has given us duties to carry out, but we are to do so in faith and by the joy that comes from placing that faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God through Christ has forgiven all your sins, supplied you grace for every circumstance, and a certain hope of being found righteous in Christ at the final judgement.

Secondly, you need to understand something about yourself. You are finite. You have a limited amount of knowledge and capacity to process that knowledge. You’re like a computer with a limited amount of processing space and if you try to load all the programs at once you will fry the motherboard. It is not wrong to think about things, to consider things, even to meditate and plan. In fact Scripture requires this of us. But it demands that we do so without any worry/anxiety.

Third, you should pay close attention to how the Word teaches about this sin. Paul prohibits worry when he says, “Be careful for nothing”. However, Scripture never tells us just to knock it off. The removal of the weeds of a particular vice is accompanied with instructions to plant in its place a vineyard of a particular virtue. Here is Paul’s strategy for battling worry: but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God (Phi. 4:6). Prayer is the true application of Calvinism. If God is sovereign, act like it and this means pray about everything. But that prayer is to be marked by an important attribute: thanksgiving.

Conclusion

So then, do not expend any extra bandwidth on worry. It is a brick in the bottom of your backpack. Just take it out. The hand you take it out with the hand of gratitude. Thank the Lord for all His benefits to you (both in private prayer and public worship). Thank those around you for ways they bless you (notes, texts, verbally). This isn’t power of positive thinking. This is the power of living by faith. By faith you can look at the world as a magical place made by the loving hand of Almighty God; you can see your present circumstances as dragons to slay or an orchard to nurture; you have certain hope for a future that is bright because you are reconciled to God through Jesus Christ.