Is worrying normal?
The temptation to worry is not difficult to find, or difficult to indulge in. There are bills to pay, health to watch, food to buy, friends to meet, children to feed, children to have, relationships to guard, jobs to get, jobs to leave.
Everybody struggles with it.
It’s been there since the beginning, in the garden. Why did Adam and Eve eat the fruit? Maybe they worried that something was being withheld from them and they needed to get it themselves.
But what is worry?
Worry is unease/concern/fear about present or potential difficulties.
It springs from a lack of trust that you won’t be cared for if you don’t do it. For a Christian, it’s not trusting that God loves you and will take care of you even if you ask.
I’ve been a Christian since I was five years old. I definitely didn’t understand what I was signing up for, but I believed that my surrender was real.
I’ve worried for thirty years, which just so happens to be how old I am. I’ve read the Bible frequently since I learned how to read, memorized Matthew 6:24 - 35 (I even put it up on my wall at school). Yet, I still don’t know how to not worry.
My thirty years haven’t been a complete conundrum. I have learned some things about why I worry.
I worry because I don’t trust God; or rather, that I don’t trust God well
I don’t trust God because I don’t believe who He says He is because it doesn’t match up with my experience
I’ve been disappointed in situations where I directly chose to trust God
I find it difficult to release the past, especially when something new looks very much like an old occurrence
But I also know that He hasn’t been absent and that I don’t completely mistrust Him.
After all:
He’s protected and guided me
I continue to be clothed, sheltered, fed
I’m basically healthy
I see His care for my family
He talks to me (and not just through His word)
He’s answered prayers
He’s acted before I’ve verbalized a need
Love this. Truth and life!