Four things to know about worry

Worry, or anxiety as my medical colleagues call it, is as common as dirt.

Most of us have been or are now worried. I’ve done my share of it and I suspect you the reader have as well. It should make us at least sympathetic to those who find their lives controlled by it.

The dictionary says worry is “to think about problems or unpleasant things that might happen in a way that makes you feel unhappy and frightened.”[1]

I often talk with patients and counselees who think constantly about the problems that they face. It has been said that people spend most of their lives worrying about things that never happen.[2]

We all do it and we know better!

It is hard to say exactly how many people are worried right now. However, if you look to the medical literature and add up all the descriptions of anxiety it approaches 20 percent of us worrying at any given time and probably more. And, we know better! Throughout the Bible we are warned against it.

The Psalmist said, “Do not fret because of evildoers. Be not envious toward wrongdoers. For they will wither quickly like the grass, and fade like the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart...” (Psalm 37:1- 4 NASB)

It appears that we should know better. So how can we avoid it?

Not all anxiety is worry

As we seek to help those who struggle with worry, it is important to sort out those who have medical ailments that make them feel as if they are worried. I have had patients who convinced they were dealing with anxiety and taking medicine for it, who actually had heart rhythm issues. At different times, their hearts would race and they would interpret that racing as anxiety. Once we were able to catch that abnormal rhythm and treat it, the patient was no longer concerned about being inexplicably worried.

I have had counselees who struggled with guilt over anxiety for which they could give no apparent cause. Eventually that individual saw a neurologist who diagnosed them with a neurological disease that caused the symptoms. The treatment given eliminated the sensation that they interpreted as worry. It is essential for anyone who comes to counseling for anxiety to have a thorough medical examination and work up to exclude treatable disease. There is nothing more distressing in counseling than to find out you have been counseling an individual for sinful worry, who really had an overactive thyroid.

Sinful worry has an object

Another important thing to keep in mind as we seek to help those who come with anxiety is that sinful worry always has an object.  That was the point our Savior was making in Matthew 6:26-32 when He told us not to worry about food, clothes, health, and even life itself. Disobedient worry in this passage has objects. Paul will say much the same thing in Philippians 4:6 when he gives the command to worry about nothing. In both cases there was an object.

There is a help to be found in the Scriptures!

I must admit I have a soft spot in my heart for any who struggle with worry, because I have struggled. Space will not allow the whole story, but in one particularly difficult problem, I struggled mightily and found help. I was working in the emergency room one night in a small rural hospital and that night I should have slept in the call room because no one was going to be sick enough to want to visit our ER.

Instead, I received a succession of phone calls that left me in a spot about which I could do little or nothing. And, I chose to worry all night. I lay on the bed in the call room staring at the ceiling, asking God what in the world am I going to do. In the morning, I opened my Bible as I usually do to read and the book mark for my annual tour through the Bible, opened to Philippians chapter four. And I read it with an ever-increasing sense that God had placed me in this difficult situation and He intended for me to learn something important.

That chapter starts with Paul admonishing two argumentative sisters in Christ to live in harmony. It was as if the chapter was written with me in mind. By the time I got to vs 4, I new that God intended for me to leave that call room with a different attitude than the one I had been working on all night. Paul was telling them and me to rejoice always, just like he did while sitting in prison.

The next verse would tell me to let my gentle Christian spirit be obvious to those who were watching. I could not treat others badly because I was being mistreated. And then Paul says it.  Do Not Worry! Be anxious for nothing which included what I was worrying about. Instead, I was to put my request before God, thank him for the problem, and ask him for a better solution to my dilemma. At the same time, I would have to willing to live with the outcome that the problem presented, if that was my Father’s will.

In exchange for that, I would get peace knowing that God intended this trial for my good and His glory. He would use this part of “all things” as the sand paper of life to shape me into the image of His Son. (Romans 8:28-29) Paul would tell the Philippians and me in the next verse that I should think about things that were true. My greatest fears for the problem had not yet occurred and might never occur. That was truth and I was to think on it. And, then get about the business of living as God would have me live.

I did not exactly find it easy keeping my mind off the problem and letting God solve and change me in the process. At one point, I came up with a drill that I would do whenever I found myself back at the problem worrying. I would stop what I was doing and the worrying, I would confess it for what it was, sinful worry and ask forgiveness.

I would ask God to work in me to do His will and not worry as He said He would in Philippians 2:12-13. And I would ask for strength to think about something I could do something about. I would recite Philippians 4:4-9 and then get back to work. The first day I did the drill 25 times. Over the next two weeks day by day, I did it less until finally I was down to praying about the problem three times a day.

God eventually solved the problem without my help and in answer to my prayers. That was great, but it wasn’t the best part. In the process, I learned how to handle worry and it gave the privilege of helping others who struggled the same way.

For those of us who are prone to wander and worry, it comes down to a choice. Jesus offered it to us in Matthew 11:28-30. Come unto me with your heavy burden and lay it down and rest! Take my light yoke instead and find rest for you worried soul. I found that rest and Jesus is still offering it to all of us who might worry.

[1] ^[1] The Cambridge Dictionary https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/worry retrieved 3 31 23

[2] https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1334501 Attributed to Moliere.