Overcoming worry & fear

Worry is an expectation that something harmful or unpleasant is going to happen. Worry is a form of fear, but in an early stage. Fear is stronger than a vague expectation, it is a conviction. There is also a time element and difference between worry and fear. We don’t usually worry about the past. For example people don’t worry about the accounts they paid yesterday, rather they worry about how to pay the accounts that are coming. Fear, although it also anticipates a harmful future, is more acute because it is closer to now. Another example: A person might be fearful of spiders, but the fear will manifest more strongly when the spider is visible and near because of the conviction that harm can be done at any moment – it is a present danger.

Over the past 18 months there has been a major drive to promote worry and fear. The credit crisis, the instability of the world economy, major companies failing, and thousands of people losing their jobs, seem to daily fill the headlines. The consistency with which these messages are communicated have fed worry and for many, this has turned into more than just a niggling worry – it has become fear: fear of an uncertain future; fear of losing a job, or fear of losing one’s life savings. Our sense of value determines to what extent fear has access to us.

Hope and faith works almost exactly like worry and fear. Hope is an expectation that something pleasant or beneficial is going to happen. Hope is faith in incubation. People also don’t hope about the past – they don’t hope to pay bills that were paid yesterday! Like hope, faith is also an expectation, but in its strongest form, namely a conviction of the reality of what was hoped for.

Let’s look again at what Jesus said about these concepts of value, worry, fear and faith:

19-21“Don’t hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or—worse!—stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it’s safe from moth and rust and burglars. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.

22-23“Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have!

24“You can’t worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you’ll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can’t worship God and Money both.

25-26“If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.

27-29“Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.

30-33“If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

34“Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” Matthew 6 MSG

Imagine two dogs – one being fit and muscular, the other a skeleton of a dog, at the point of death because of starvation. Worry is an animal that needs to be habitually nourished to grow strong. The very attention we give to certain subjects, is the substance that feeds our fear. For many fear has become a strong guard dog, patrolling the perimeter of their thinking, and faith has become the scroungy skeleton dog – at the point of starvation. What is needed is a way of taking away the nourishment from the one and giving it to the other.

Value:

Placing value where value belongs is a key ingredient to placing our attention where our attention belongs. If God is intimately involved with providing for birds, how much more concerned is He about His very own offspring? Recognising the value He places on us; recognising our inherent value apart from money, clothes or any external possession frees us from irrational worry and giving our attention to stuff that is not worthy our attention. Once we realise that we have a value beyond the reach of decay; a consistent value because it is derived from the consistent love that the Father has for us, then we can relax; then we can stop being “preoccupied with getting, so we can respond to God’s giving“. In order to starve fear and feed faith you need to ‘give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.’ I want to challenge you to consider what God is doing right now – ask him to reveal this to you. Not long ago I was challenged by this statement – I spoke to God and asked for understanding regarding what occupied Him at that moment. I became aware of matters that dwarfed my worries into insignificance; matters in which He wants to involve us; matters that not only reveals the insignificance of our worries, but provides for all our needs as a consequence of us placing our attention where it belongs – Him.

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