WHO WE ARE

  CONTACT US

RDC News

How to deal with Worry

Philip 4:6,7   Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation..... present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

“Religion is the opium of the people” is a slight misquote often attributed to Karl Marx (he actually said in context, ‘It is the opium of the people’.) Lenin commenting on it added, ‘Religion is a sort of spiritual booze.” An American later commented, “"Marx was wrong--religion is not the opiate of the masses, baseball is." (all courtesy of Wikipedia). Each one implies that in some way or other religion works to calm us down to cope with the stresses of life. For Marx and Lenin is was to doing with us being ‘workers’ benefiting others.

But however we look at it,  life is stressful. You only have to pick up and read any paper to catch a glimpse of the wide range of things that are out there to worry you! It may be the environment or it may be the financial crisis.  But we don’t have to turn to a paper or turn on the TV to catch a dose of worry. Health, family, job, education, relationships generally are all causes of worry. In fact it is probably true to say that most of us live with some sort of worry every day of our lives.

Now unthinking people turn round and say, “What a miserable God there must be - if there is one - to give us this sort of life, to consign us to this sort of daily anxiety!”  Thinking people ask, “Did God make it like this or is it like it for some other reason?” Christians turn to the Bible for answers and find there that it declares that God made this world perfect, but gave us free will, which we exercised to do our own thing and live in ways contrary to the ‘Maker’s Design’. The result is that things go wrong: people are nasty, sickness and illness ensued and the world no longer works like it did at the beginning (and there was a beginning!)

But our thinking person will go on to say, “Presumably God knew that it would work out like this? So has He left us to our own devices so we’re stuck with this ongoing sense of daily worry because it’s all no longer working properly?” The simple and short answer to this is, no, He’s sent Jesus Christ, His Son, to show us that He is for us and wants to guide, help and direct our lives so they are no longer so stressful.  Well, that’s the background theory, shall we say, and it is true, but how does it work on a daily basis.

Well let’s have a look again at those two verses at the top of the page. They suggest that when we do get anxious about anything and in any situation, talk to God about it. It is that simple and what is amazing is that anyone can do it. It doesn’t say you can only pray when you are good, when you’ve got it all together and are religious. No, there are no restrictions, anybody can do it. How do you do it? You imagine He is there with you in the room (because He is) and you just tell Him what you are worried about and what you want to happen. Doing it out loud makes it more positive. None of us wants this worry to carry on, we want it to go, but so often it is linked to people and circumstances and we can’t change them. So what’s the point bothering, our critic asks?

Well, it’s a strange thing but when you pray, genuinely talk to God who is there, you start to catch a sense of His presence, and it is good. No, it is more than good, it gives you a sense of peace. It’s crazy really, you shouldn’t be feeling peaceful because nothing has changed but somehow as you prayed, this feeling of peace arrived. Now Karl Marx and an atheist-psychologist would suggest that you are playing mind games but what they don’t realise is that God actually IS there and there is something you need to know about Him: He is enormous, He fills the universe and He is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-wise and His presence is like a massive rock and He has no stresses or strains or worries or anxieties and so is utterly at peace. That peace that defies understanding is Him!

So yes, nothing has changed EXCEPT you have a sense of Him, The One who is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-wise and who is in control and not stressed out by the silly things we human beings get up to. He can work into them and bring good out of them. When we listen to Him He can tell us what to do, how to live and so on, and that does start to bring changes and those changes do start to bring good and that good is great to live with.

You can reason and rationalise and you can mutter and curse and deny and challenge but nothing changes. It is only when we come simply like little children with child-like faith that we find He is there for us, and suddenly all that the Bible says about Jesus starts to make sense. I really do believe, I am absolutely certain, that there are good, reasonable and rational answers to all the ‘big questions’ but understanding of them comes, in God’s economy, after belief. He is there for you - believe it. He will listen when you pray - believe it. He will let you know He’s there - believe it. Believing is doing, so why not put aside everything else, get in a room alone with Him and tell Him all about it. You’ve got nothing to lose by doing it, but everything to lose if you don’t. Go on, go for it!