Shall We Worry?

“The little worries which we meet each day
May lie as stumbling-blocks across our way,
Or we may make them stepping stones to be
Of grace, O Lord, to Thee.”1

When you are inclined to worry—don’t do it.

That is the first thing. No matter how much reason there seems to be for worrying, still, there is your rule: don’t worry. Matters may be greatly tangled, so tangled that you cannot see how they ever can be straightened out; still, don’t worry. Troubles may be very real and very sore, and there may not seem a rift in the clouds; nevertheless, don’t worry.

Perhaps you think such a rule is too high for humans to carry out—mortals cannot be expected to reach it. Surely there are some circumstances in which one cannot help but worry. But wait a moment. What did the Master teach? “I say unto you, be not anxious for your life…. Be not… anxious for the morrow.”* (Matthew 6:25-34)RV He left no exceptions. What did Paul teach? “In nothing be anxious.”* (Philippians 4:6)RV He said not a word about exceptions to the rule, but left it unqualified and absolute.

A practical piece of homely, common-sense wisdom says that there are two kinds of things we should not worry about—things we can help, and things we cannot. Evils we can help we ought to help. If the fire is dying down and the room growing cold, we ought to put on more fuel. If the roof leaks, we ought to mend it. If the fence is falling apart and letting our neighbor’s cattle into our wheat field, we had better repair the fence than sit down and stew over the troublesomeness of people’s cows. If we suffer from indigestion, we had better look to our diet and our exercise. That is, we are very silly if we worry about things we can help. Help them. That is the heavenly wisdom for that sort of ills or cares. That is the way to cast that kind of burden on the Lord.

But there are things we cannot help. “Which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto his stature?”* (Matthew 6:27)RV What folly, then, for a short man to worry because he is not tall, or for a woman to worry about the color of her hair? Our lives include a large number of things like these that no human power can change, so why worry about them? Will it do any good?

Thus common-sense brings us to the same conclusion. Things we can make better we should make better, and not fret about them; and things we cannot help or change we should accept as God’s will for us, and make no complaint about them. This very simple principle, faithfully applied, would eliminate all worrying from our lives.

If that seems too simplistic, just consider the perspective highlighted in this prayer:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.”2

There is our key. If this world were governed by chance, no amount of philosophy or common sense could keep us from worrying. But as children of our heavenly Father we realize first how much we must receive His help, and we also know that He delights to care of us. No little child in truest and most sheltered home was ever carried so closely or so safely in the love and thought and care of earthly parents as is the least of God’s little ones in the heavenly Father’s heart. The things we cannot help or change are in His hand, and belong to the “all things” which, we are assured, “work together for good to them that love God.”* (Romans 8:28) In the midst of all the great rush of events and circumstances in which we can see no order or design, we well know that each believer in Christ is as safe as any little child in the arms of the most loving mother. It is not a mere blind faith that we try to nourish in our hearts as we seek to school ourselves to quietness and confidence amid all life’s trials and disappointments. It is a faith that rests upon the character and the infinite goodness of God—the faith of a little child in a Father whose name is “Love” and whose power extends to every part of His universe. So here we find solid rock upon which to stand, and good reason for our lesson that we should never worry. Our Father is taking care of us.

This argument is well expressed in the following lines:

“If I could only surely know
That all the things that tire me so
Were noticed by my Lord—
The pang that cuts me like a knife,
The lesser pains of daily strife—
What peace it would afford!

“I wonder if He really shares
In all these little human cares,
This mighty King of kings;
If He who guides through boundless space
Each blazing planet in its place
Can have the condescending grace
To mind these petty things.

“It seems to me, if sure of this,
Blent with each ill would come such bliss
That I might covet pain,
And deem whatever brought to me
The loving thought of Deity
And sense of Christ’s sweet sympathy,
Not loss, but richest gain.

“Dear Lord, my heart shall no more doubt
That Thou dost compass me about
With sympathy divine:
The love for me once crucified
Is not the love to leave my side,
But waiteth ever to divide
Each smallest care of mine.”

But if we are never to worry, what shall we do with the things that incline us to anxiety? There are many such things in the life even of the most warmly sheltered. There are disappointments that leave the hands empty after days and years of hope and toil; there are resistless thwartings of fondly-cherished plans and purposes; there are bereavements that seem to sweep away every earthly joy; there are perplexities through which no human wisdom can lead the feet; there are experiences in every life whose natural effect is to perturb the spirit and produce deep and painful anxiety. If we are never to worry, what are we to do with these things that naturally tend to cause us worry?

This is easily answered—though not always easily done. We are to put all these disturbing and distracting things into the hands of God. If we carry them ourselves, of course we cannot help worrying over them. But we are not to carry them; we cannot if we would. Up to the measure of our wisdom and our ability we are to forecast our lives and shape our circumstances. What people sometimes call trust is only laziness; we must meet life heroically. But when we have done our whole simple duty, there both our duty and our responsibility end.

And where is that line? Where does our responsibility end and trust begin? But that is the wrong question, for our responsibility is to trust all the time. We can hardly keep from worry if we try to divide our lives between the two. Instead, we trust the Father to give us a sound mind that can learn to do just the part He expects us to carry out. And we trust Him to teach us when and where to let go and rest in His keeping.

We cannot hold back the wave that the sea flings upon the beach; we cannot control the wind and the rain; we cannot keep away the frosts that threaten to destroy our summer fruits; we cannot shut out the sickness that brings pain and suffering, or the sorrow that leaves its poignant anguish; we cannot prevent the misfortune that comes through the carelessness or malice of others. In the presence of all this class of ills we are utterly powerless; no wisdom or strength of our own can control them. Why, then, should we endeavor to carry them, only to be vexed in vain?

Besides, there is no reason to do so. It would be a very foolish little child in a home of plenty and of love that should worry about his food and shelter, or about his father’s business affairs, and be anxious and stressed about his own safety and comfort. The child has nothing whatever to do with these matters; his father and mother are attending to them.

Or imagine a great ship sailing across the ocean with the captain’s family on board. Picture his child going about the vessel anxious about every movement and worried lest something may go wrong—lest the engines fail, or the sailors make a mistake, or the food run out. What has the captain’s child to do with any of these things? His father is looking after them.

We are God’s children, living in our Father’s world, and we have no more to do with managing the world than the shipmaster’s little child has to do with the management and care of the great vessel’s voyage. We have only to stay in our place and attend to our own little personal duties, giving ourselves no shadow of anxiety about anything else. That is what we are to do instead of worrying when we meet things that would naturally perplex us. We are just to lay them in God’s hands—where they belong—that He may look after them while we abide in quiet peace and go on with our little daily duties.

We have high scriptural authority for this. This is what Paul teaches in his immortal prison-letter, when he says, “Be careful [or anxious] for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”* (Philippians 4:6-7) The points here shine out very clearly. We are to be anxious in nothing, in no possible circumstances—we are never to worry. Instead of being anxious, we are to take everything to God in prayer. The result will be peace: “The peace of God… shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Peter’s counsel is similar, though more condensed: “Casting all your anxiety upon him, because he careth for you.”* (1 Peter 5:7)RV God is taking care of you, not overlooking the smallest thing, and you have but to cast all your anxiety upon Him and then be at peace. Worry comes from trying to carry our own cares; our duty is to cast them all upon Christ, giving ourselves thought only about our duty. This is the secret of peace.

Here is a practical suggestion which may be helpful in learning this lesson. The heart in its pressure of care or pain cannot well remain silent; it must speak or break. Its natural impulse is to give utterance to its emotion in cries of pain or in fretful complainings and discontented murmurings. It will be a great relief to the overburdened spirit if in time of pain or trial the pent-up feelings can be given some other vent than in expressions of worry or anxiety. Paul’s words, already quoted, provide us with the way of escape, for when he says we should take our anxieties to God in prayer, he adds “with thanksgiving.” Thanksgiving is the relief valve for the pressure tank of stress and pain.

It is better always to put pain or grief into melody than into wails. It is better for the heart itself; it is a sweeter relief. There are no wings like the wings of song and praise to bear away life’s burdens. And it is better for the world that we start a song trembling in the air than to set loose a shriek to fly abroad.

We remember that our Lord, when he was nailed on the cross, where His sufferings must have been excruciating, instead of a cry of anguish turned the woe of His heart into a prayer of intercession for His murderers. Paul, too, in his prison, his back torn with the scourge and his feet fast in the stocks, gave vent to his great suffering in midnight hymns of praise which rang throughout the prison.

These illustrations suggest a wonderful secret of heart-peace in time of distress, whatever the cause. We must find some outflow for our pent-up emotions; silence is unendurable. We may not complain nor give utterance to feelings of anxiety, but we may turn the bursting tides into the channels of praise and prayer.

We may also find relief in loving service for others. Indeed, there is no more wonderful secret of joyful endurance of trial than this. If the heart can put its pain or its fear into helping and comforting those who are in need and in trouble, it soon forgets its own care. If the whole inner story of lives were known, it would be found that many of those who have done the most to comfort the world’s sorrow and bind up its wounds and help it in its need have been men and women whose own hearts found outlet for their pain, care, or sorrow in ministries to others in Christ’s name. Thus they found blessing for themselves in the peace that ruled in their lives, and they became blessings to the world by giving it songs instead of tears, and helpful service instead of the burden of discontent and complaining (2 Corinthians 1:3-7).

If a bird has to be in a cage, better it is a canary that fills its place of imprisonment with happy song than a starling that sits within the wire walls in dumb and inconsolable distress. But too often Christians succumb to troubles and imitate the starling, giving nothing to the world but murmurings and the memory of miserable discontent. If we must have cares and trials, it is far better that we should bear them with rejoicing, brightening the very darkness of our environment with the bright light of Christian faith in a faithful and caring heavenly Father.