From Bruce and Stan and their book ‘God is in the Small Stuff’ and it all matters’
Stop Worrying and Start Living
Worrying is one of the most destructive of all human habits because it decreases your effectiveness in other areas. When you worry about something, your thoughts and your emotions that haven’t taken place. It’s like Mark Twain once said: “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles but most of them never happened.”
Worrying is totally passive. It accomplishes nothing. On the other hand, worrying can literally make you sick while keeping you from accomplishing the things that really matter. Here’s a sobering thought: Worrying can keep you from living your live the way God intended it.
Think about the things you worry about. Amazingly, you probably worry about the small stuff. Those details of life over which you have little or no control. Oswald Chambers wrote: “It is not only wrong to worry, it is unbelief; worrying means we do not believe that God can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never anything but those details that worry us.”
Jesus asked the rhetorical question, “Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? Are you trying to arrange the details of your life so carefully that you are leaving God out of the process? Then you’re probably worrying too much. You are relying on your own abilities, and you think you have a lot to lose if things don’t turn out the way you want.
Clearly the antidote to worry is trusting God to take care of the small stuff of your life. “Give all your cares and worries to God to take care of the small stuff of your life. Invite Him to get involved in the details of your life. Give all your worries and cares to God,” says the Bible, “for He cares about what happens to you” (1 Peter 5:7 NLT).
. . . .In the Small Stuff
- Live longer by worrying less.
- Don’t worry about what you can’t do. If you must worry, worry about why you won’t do what you should do.
- Before you worry needlessly, ask yourself, What’s the worst thing that could happen?”
- When you’re feeling overwhelmed, remember to take things one at a time—one day at a time.
- Worrying occurs when God is left out of the process.
- Anxiety is short lived when we give it to God.
- If you prepare tor the future, you won’t have to worry about it.
- Don’t worry as much about where you are as where you are going.
- Rather than worrying about change, learn to thrive on it.
- Worry is a choice.
- When you choose to worry, you are choosing not to trust God.
- Worry can literally harm you—emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually.
- Instead of worrying about what you can’t do, think about what God can do for you.
- The best way to stop worrying is to start praying.
- Never confuse worrying about tomorrow with planning for tomorrow.
- Prayer changes things; worry changes nothing.
Bruce Bickel and Stan Jantz, God is in the Small Stuff and it all matters (Published by Promised Press, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc. Uhrichsville, 1998), 116-123
