I smiled and knew that it would require more convincing to get further down that trail, so I first tried diversion. "Isaac is that a wolf I see!! Just kidding!" "Isaac, what is the name of your budgie?" "Sam! I don’t think this such a good idea, papa. I want to go back." Now I had to pull out the heavy artillery. "Isaac, big boys aren’t afraid of the night." "Papa, I’m a little boy. I want to go back!!!" Not much left to try only this. "Isaac, papa is with you and I will protect you. Come on, get on my shoulders." That got us another 100 metres but that was the limit! So we headed back!
So now we begin a fear audit! Which trails are left unfinished in your life. This week let’s explore the fears that control us, but for now let me give you five biblical reasons why fear expressed through worry and anxiety is worthless.
It is Unreasonable
"Don’t worry about your life, what you should eat or drink, and don’t worry about your body or what you’ll wear. Your life is far more important than clothes."
Mathew 6:25
We worry about the wrong thing. We worry about the little stuff. We worry about what we can’t and can change. If you can’t change it, why worry about it. If you can change it why worry about it, change it. It is irrational. Whatever you worry about gets larger in your mind.
Nature Does Not Worry
"Look at the birds of the air; they don’t sow or reap or store away in barns… And yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not more valuable than birds?"
- Mathew 6:26
Worry is learned!
Worry is Unhelpful
"Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”
- Mathew 6:27
It spends and never fills!
Worry is Unnecessary
"If God cares so wonderfully even for the flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow, won’t he surely care for you?”
- Mathew 6:30
What He is saying here is that God has assumed responsibility for the needs in your life.
Worry is Unbelief
"People who don’t know God and the way He works- they worry over these things."
- Mathew 6:32
God is God and I’m not!! Worry is practical atheism.
Scriptures:
Jesus says this. "I am the good shepherd."
- John 10:14-15
We say, "The Lord is my shepherd"
- Psalm 23
Question: What excuses have you used to live in worry?
Meditation: In silence and stillness think about what value worry has brought to your life.