In 1949, Alfred Smith wrote the short song,
Why worry when you can pray?
Trust Jesus, He’ll be your stay;
Don’t be a “doubting Thomas.”
Trust fully in His promise.
Why worry, worry, worry, worry,
When you can pray?
We as human beings, some more than others I guess, seem to worry A LOT about stuff. Sometimes we worry about stuff that will never even happy, and sometimes we worry about stuff we have no control over – but it seems like people just like to worry. Or at least one would think so from all the worrying people do.
However, when we give our hearts and lives to God and obey Him, we don’t have to worry about ANYTHING at all! The Bible tells us in Philippians 4:6-8, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”
Paul tells us DO NOT worry about ANYTHING! In fact, rather than worry – think about good stuff! Dwell on God’s promises and protection rather than worry about stuff.
I have been speaking in a lot of public schools lately at FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) meetings, and I have several more scheduled in the next couple of months.
Well, just last week I had an FCA teacher email me and ask me if I would be willing to share my story with the entire school. I agreed that that would be awesome, and so told him “yes!” So, he emailed me back and set a date. I didn’t think anything about it, but just told him that date would be perfect and went about my daily chores.
As I lay in bed that evening, I got to thinking about it and suddetly realized I was scheduled to speak in another school’s FCA meeting that same day, and I began to worry that I had messed up by scheduling two schools on the same day. One school wanted me to speak from 8:00 – 9:00 and then the next school was wanting me to come at 10:00, but I was thinking the schools were on opposite sides of the county and I would have trouble during rush hour in Atlanta making it from one school to the other, and I could hardly sleep that night worrying about which one to cancel or call and see if they would reschedule. Finally, I just told myself, “Joshua, it’s all under God’s control…STOP worrying about it!”
Well, when I woke up in the morning, one of the first things I did was go to google maps and find where both of these schools were. They are 5 miles apart! God had it worked out all along – I had PLENTY of time to get from one school to the other one, and here I had worried about it all evening. I had to ask God to forgive me for not trusting Him completely!
BE ANXIOUS FOR NOTHING!!! God cares about EVERYTHING in our lives and He wants us to trust Him to handle EVERYTHING!! Either God is ALMIGHTY GOD and able to handle ANYTHING that comes in our life, or else He’s not God at all. But, believe me – I know from experience that HE IS GOD!!
Why Worry – When You Can Pray?