Raise your hand if you spend moments in a day worrying? Now raise your hand if you just lied about worrying? ALL of us worry about something or someone. We are so wrapped up in self. Worry is part of self package. We even worry about worrying. Sometimes our troubles begin with worry more than circumstance. It’s almost as if worrying brings on circumstances that we wished and dreaded would happen just so we can say, “See, I told you this would happen!”
We become self-fulling prophecies when we worry about the life we think we should be living. For example, if we dread going to the doctor and focus on all the bad he could tell us, that’s probably all we will hear. If we dread the outcome of an important meeting because of our unpreparedness, it will probably be unpleasant, just as we planned in our minds it would be.
We are great at worrying about details of life that will probably never happen. Consider how much time we spend in worrying over the “what if’s” of life that never occur? How many hours of our lives are taken from us because of worry? How many hours were thrown away in worry instead of loving our neighbor like Jesus loves us? Do we help others worry? 
Worry is like a virus. Worry can make you sick, especially if you worry about getting sick! Worry IS contagious! We can turn the opinion of an entire room of people by bringing up issues, details and circumstances that will never occur. Great planning for great outcomes is good concern and adds to a good experience; worrying over things out of our control and probably will never happen is quite another issue.
Don’t worship worry, worship God! People who don’t trust God have greater propensity to worry. Are we helping them or adding to their stress of worry by joining “team worry” with them? OR, do we point them to Jesus, while demonstrating of our lack of worry because of our trust in God?
Believing Friends, know our enemy, Satan! Our thought life is attacked by the evil one often, daily, almost hourly. He wants us to worship him so encouraging us to worry is his greatest tool. He knows that if we can plant a thought of worry in our minds it will distract us quickly from our Lord and His work in us. And we fall for it. Every. Time.So, Jesus says,
Matthew 6
Do Not Worry25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
HOLY PAUSE
What do I seek most in a day? My Lord or my worry?Do I worry more about tomorrow or more about the love Jesus has for me today AND tomorrow?
Does my worry sabotage my faith?
Do I really believe what I believe about God is really real?
Do I believe what Jesus is saying today?
If yes to the last question, then, why worry? Just stop it.
First step…ask for His help. Deliver us from evil, Lord.
In Jesus Name, By His power in us, Amen!
Daily Manna (Coffee with Jesus) 