Talk to God About Your Worries
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Worries are a nuisance. They are like the little kid that continually pulls at her mother’s sleeve wanting attention. The constant pulling prevents mom from focusing on what she needs to be doing like driving or paying her bills. Eventually, mom wants to scream.
Worries are like the cricket that gets into your bedroom at night. Hiding beneath a dresser somewhere out of sight it chirps at what seems to be outrageous decibels every 10 seconds or so. Eventually, the little noise maker drives you out of bed in a frustrated rage to crawl on your hands and knees around your bedroom.
I had a conversation yesterday with a couple of co-workers in which we described to each other our frustration in getting to sleep. Each of us, at times, find ourselves wrapped up in thoughts we can’t seem to banish from our mind. Often, these have to do with problems in our work or personal life. We worry. We play out all kinds of possible negative scenarios convincing ourselves that the worst will happen.
Worry doesn’t just happen at night, however. This morning during my quiet time as I tried to focus on God and turn my attention to seeking God’s Presence for my day, I found myself worrying. Instead of meditating on God, I found my mind elaborating on a negative scenario that may never happen. I could see it in great detail as I allowed my negative thoughts to embellish it beyond reason.
Whether these worries happen in the middle of the night or in the brightness of day, I have found that the best way for me to deal with them is to talk to God about them. This morning when I realized what I was doing, I simply talked to God. I described my worry (though God already knew it). I talked to God about how I didn’t want my mind filled with these negative thoughts. I told God I wanted to release the thought from my mind and trust God to work in this situation in positive ways.
Turning my worries over to God isn’t a magic cure for my worries. Sometimes, like a cricket in the night, it continues to chirp at me. However, when I stop and talk to God about it all over again, and again, and again, eventually I’m able to release it altogether and know that God is control.
When I stop worrying about something and say to God, “I trust you with this,” I think God is very pleased. Placing things in God’s hand is a great act of faith and love toward God. It is a way of saying, “I believe in you. I trust you. I need you.” On the other hand, when we continue to allow worries to dominate our thinking, we are subtly saying to God, “I don’t need you. I can take care of this myself. I don’t trust you to handle this.” To love God means to trust him with our worries.
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