Will I lose my job? Will my children grow up to be healthy, responsible adults? Will I get a bad report when I take my physical exam? Will my marriage survive? Does my husband/wife still love me? Will I have enough money this week/month to pay my bills? And the questions that reflect our worry worn hearts could go and on. How do you overcome worry?
I read the following article in PreachingToday.com that illustrated how J. Arthur Rank, an early film pioneer from Great Britain, overcame worry.
Sometimes, if you will just wait, problems take care of themselves. J. Arthur Rank had a system for doing that. He was one of the early pioneers of the film industry in Great Britain, and he also happened to be a devout Christian.
Rank found he couldn’t push his worries out of his mind completely; they were always slipping back in. So he finally made a pact with God to limit his worrying to Wednesday. He even made himself a little Wednesday Worry Box and he placed it on his desk. Whenever a worry cropped up, Rank wrote it out and dropped it into the Wednesday Worry Box.
Would you like to know his amazing discovery? When Wednesday rolled around, he would open that box to find that only a third of the items he had written down were still worth worrying about. The rest had managed to resolve themselves.
If you have a troubled heart, ask God to give you a new perspective. Also ask Him to give you patience so you do not jump ahead and worry about a problem that may never come. Most important of all, ask God for more faith. Faith in God is the best remedy for all our problems. Jesus put it plainly, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in Me.” (King Duncan, Collected Sermons, adapted from Daily Bread, Dec. 1, 1999. Cited by David Jeremiah, Slaying the Giants in Your Life).
Jesus added this to his words regarding how to overcome worry… Luke 12:29 (NIV) “And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it.”
Perhaps the wisdom of having a “worry box” with a word from scripture would be some practical ways for you to win the battle of worry.
Rick Jones previously served on the staff of Defiance Area Youth for Christ for 36 years as a ministry coordinator and 18 years as Executive Director and is currently a pastor of an area local church.
