Pastor A

There are only two areas of life: the things you can control and the things you cannot control. Why do so many people worry about what they cannot control? To me this is moronic. If you can control it, then why worry about it? After all, it is in your control, thus making worry a total waste of energy, effort, and sleeplessness.

The past is something you cannot control. It is over. Seek forgiveness and learn from your mistakes and successes. Do not worry about your past. The future is something that you can control. But do not worry about it either. Just do something about it. The present is also in your control. Live it the way God wants you to live it and the future will take care of itself. Worry will only turn it in a direction you do not want it to take.

This is a hard thing to do. I know it is. We have a man in our church who is in a part of the world that he should not be. He has a wife and daughter back home here in the Tucson area. He has privately shared with me some of his duties and the dangers of his job… then he told me that he has placed me as the first contact should something happen to him. It would then be my “duty” to go to his house to talk with his wife and daughter. His wife told me that I had better never come to visit unannounced. Talk about a worrisome situation…

Like all of the families of our men and women in service, I am scared to death for him. But there is not one thing I can do about it. This is his job or career. This is a career that he “enjoys” and it provides a living for his family. My worry about him will do no good and will only cause stress and wreak havoc in my own life. So… don’t worry and place it in God’s hands.

Worry is a misuse of your imagination. Worry attracts to you exactly what you do not want to happen. Like Job said, “For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.” Several years ago I decided that is was a foolish waste of energy to worry about anything and so I gave it up. Instead I turn my energy toward other areas that can produce an outcome that is truly helpful, encouraging, or uplifting. I have tried to put my energy into the outcome I desire, rather than the outcome of that which I do not desire.

Stop focusing on what you do not want to happen. In other words, stop worrying. Instead, stay focused on what you want to happen. Focus your energy on the kind of life that God desires for you, the relationships that you want, and the way you should feel (diet and exercise). This will work for anything and every area of your life. Change your focus and then watch the changed results. It really works!

“The secret of success is constancy of purpose.“   Benjamin Disraeli