Fret not

I was driving my car the other morning on a rainy, stormy morning.  My car already pulls to the driver’s side, and in the wind, I felt like I was constantly fighting the car to stay in my lane.  It wasn’t a big deal until I went to pass a truck.  The extra pull from the semi made it necessary to grip the wheel even tighter, and my arms were already tired.  Being me, I passed the truck and decided to see what would happen if I relaxed my arms a little.  How fast would the car veer off track?  I was curious, and surprised when I realized that relaxing my arms made almost no difference in the car’s ability to stay on track.  It turns out that I was over-compensating for the perceived danger of running off the road.  Yes, the wind was still blowing, and I needed to be aware and correct as the wind came up, but gripping the wheel so tightly all the time wasn’t actually doing me any good.  I was so intent on preparing for the wind that, when it did come, it was harder to deal with since I was already tired.  I was wasting my energy on the danger I saw coming, thereby losing the energy necessary to deal with the danger itself.

I once saw a poster that said, “Worry is like a rocking chair.  It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.”  The thing about a poster like that is that it doesn’t really convey what worry actually does.  It’s not like worry is a harmless past-time, a waste of time but no worse than computer solitaire or staring out the window.  Worry is a waste of time, but it’s far from harmless.  It turns out that stress has harmful effects on the body (who knew?) including affecting your brain itself.  Bear with me on this, because regardless of gender and age, this really does illustrate what worry does.  During menopause (seriously, stay with me!), a woman’s hormones get way out of whack, and the body uses the adrenal glands (the endocrine system) as a back-up for the body’s hormonal production.  If a woman has been stressed out a lot before she goes into menopause, the already over-taxed adrenal glands are further weakened, leaving the woman with much more severe symptoms of menopause.  Worry and stress can also lead to high blood pressure and heart attacks, we all know that.  In addition, it makes us miserable and weakens our ability to deal with what is stressing us out, so instead of being able to work through our issues, we end up too stressed out to remove the stress!

God, unlike me, never says anything unimportant.  He never just babbles.  The Bible, then, should be considered a source of what’s important, not a bunch of somewhat entertaining trivialities.  When the Bible says, “Don’t worry!”  (Matthew 6:25-34; Philippians 4:6), it’s not meant to be a cute little suggestion, like “Don’t wear pink and red at the same time,” or “No white shoes after Labor Day.”  No, what’s at stake here is life, joy, and peace.  And to be honest, your testimony to the world!  If you don’t actually believe that God’s got it under control, why would the world want what you have?