In with Jesus, out with life’s worries
Jesus said, “So I tell you, don’t worry about everyday life.” Plus “Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? Of course not.” He also said, “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”
According to Dictionary.com, the word ‘worry’ is defined as ‘a worried condition or feeling’ and ‘a cause of uneasiness or anxiety; trouble.’ Melanie Greenberg, a clinical psychologist, and author of the book, ‘The Stress-Proof Brain’, asserts that 85% of the things people worry about actually never happen.
Before my husband, Steve died, I had pressed into the statements Jesus made and disciplined myself not to worry. If I woke in the night and something was troubling me, I learnt to say, “Jesus, I need my sleep. I can’t do anything about this situation. I’m going to leave this at the foot of the cross. Good night.” It took time to create this response as my ‘first response’, but it really worked. I’m not a worrier by nature; but I made sure that everything, even the minor worries in my life, were left with Jesus.
After Steve died, I went through a season where worries surrounded me, but I learned to leave them at the cross and allow God to remain as the One who would take care of my life and all its little details.
2020 brought new challenges. I found that, as easy as it was to check the news looking at the restriction information of four countries where sessions mostly exist – BBC for the United Kingdom, NZ Herald or Stuff for New Zealand, and ABC for Australia – it became obvious I was getting a little too stirred up about news that I couldn’t control. Sometimes these were conjecture anyway – journalists making predictions. I’m a visionary and being unable to see the future was a tough position to find myself in.
I needed to stop and restart my practice of discipline. I stopped viewing the news each morning from my phone. I prayed, asking for calm, reminding myself that God was in control and that I could trust Him.
What I also found immensely helpful was a practice a staff member had begun using. Breathe in, breathe out. She’d heard this at one of the on-line services from her church. And, for a while this became used in our staff prayer times.
As you breathe in, ask for the Holy Spirit to fill your lungs, your very being.
Concentrate on your breathing. Concentrate on His breath filing your body. Speak out the words that you’d like to breathe in, asking the Holy Spirit to fill you. Like, love, joy, peace, kindness, gratefulness … what a difference thinking about and breathing in those words make.
As you breathe out, breathe out your worries and concerns and hand them over to Jesus.
It’s crazy to realise that we can get to a place of spiritual practice and then find ourselves back in a position where we need to restart that practice. But helpfully, there’s a process to follow and a process we know that has a result.
Breathe, it might help you become a little more fearless.
