Some of us lie awake at night thinking about the fate of a son or daughter. Others worry about job situations or health or a family that is falling apart. Worry can show up in a throbbing tension headache. Others experience a pounding heart and shortness of breath. For still others, unrecognized fear lurks behind our tendency to overeat, overspend, or overuse anything that will deaden the pain. We all know what it means to face circumstances beyond our control.
Followers of Christ aren’t immune to worry or its complications. Sometimes our spiritual beliefs seem to make matters even worse. We want so much for our faith to make a difference in our lives so that family members, neighbors, and co-workers see us trusting in the goodness and presence of God. We worry about letting them down.
The results are costly. Anxiety divides our attention and subtracts from our energy. We don’t know what to do with the concerns that wear us down.
In a sense, we worry because we are made in the image of God, given an imagination that enables us to see the good and bad possibilities of life. We’re designed with the capacity to care about what happens to ourselves and to others.
The challenge is to learn what God has given us to help us deal with our broken world.
