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I remember a song we sang when I was young: Why worry when you can pray? Well, it’s a good question, isn’t it? Why do we worry when Jesus has clearly told us not to worry? Worrying is truly worthless!
We’ve looked at three reasons we should not worry from Matthew 6. They are:
- Because of who we are. We are more valuable than birds.
- Because it never does any good.
- Because it’s a bad testimony.
Now we’re looking at three ways to stop worrying. We can stop worrying when we think about how our Heavenly Father takes care of us. I want to emphasize again our problem with worrying is in our thoughts. Worrying takes place in your mind, and in 2 Corinthians 10:5 we read we are to take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
The battle is in your mind, and you stop worrying when you change your thought patterns. I’ve written a whole book on this topic—Think About What You Think About—because I believe most of our problems begin with wrong thinking. It’s certainly true in my life; as soon as I allow my thoughts to get out of control, to think about things I should not be thinking about, that’s when worrying moves in and I become a worrywart, as we say!
Philippians 4:8 says we are to think about what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. When you’re worrying, it is often not true, certainly not noble, never admirable or excellent or praiseworthy. We need to stop worrying. And you do that by replacing wrong thoughts with right ones.
When you find yourself in worry mode, stop and intentionally change your thoughts, replacing those worrying thoughts with how your Heavenly Father has promised to take care of you, to never leave you or forsake how, and how he loves you and cherishes you. It may only last for a few minutes before you start worrying again, but if you simply keep replacing wrong thoughts with right ones, soon you will build spiritual muscle. You’ll discover you’re not worrying nearly as much as you used to.
Please remember: Worrying is a useless and worthless activity. And you have the power, through Jesus Christ, to be rid of it.