Don't Worry, It Could Be Worse! Series

DON’T WORRY, IT COULD BE WORSE

By: C. Mason Davis

A Peanuts cartoon showed Charlie Brown bringing Snoopy his dinner on Thanksgiving Day. But it was just his usual dog food. Snoopy looked at his bowl and said, “This isn’t fair. The rest of the world today is eating turkey with all the trimmings, and all I get is dog food. Because I’m a dog, all I get is dog food.” He stared at his food for a while, and said, “I guess it could be worse. I could be a turkey.”

TODAYS SCRIPTURE

Matthew 6:34: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Worry is a state of the mind. It’s not a disease. It’s not an illness. But it is an excuse. It is one of the most overused excuses one can use to hide from life. An excuse to avoid anything and everything in attempting to shelter oneself from living a life that God would want you to experience. The Bible tells us that worrying is a complete waste of time. Matthew 6:27 says, "Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?" This verse suggests that most of what we worry about doesn't happen. Jesus also says in Matthew 6:25, “Therefore, I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?”

There are two things in life you should never worry about. First, those things you can actually change, and things you can do something about. Second, those things you can’t do anything about. If there is nothing you can do why spend your time worrying? Don’t waste your time. Matthew points out that life is much bigger than the things that we worry about, and think are so important. In Matthew 6:26, Jesus says, “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?” Do you think they’re worried? God takes care of them. He takes care of us. So, worrying is simply a waste of time and time is precious.

Although to worry about anything is a waste of time, as humans, most of use worry because we think the worst of every situation. That every situation that we find ourselves worrying about is at a level that “nothing could be worse” than what you’re going thru at that time. Everything becomes dire. Because of this, we scare ourselves into becoming very negative in every thought and start to feel that there is no hope. We lose faith in ourselves to the point of forgetting or denying our faith, but by turning to God in these times can make all the difference. There is a truth to life that most of us never come to realize, and that is that no matter how dire something in our lives seem to be, things could always be worse. Everything can always be worse than whatever happens. Worrying can drag you down into the depths of despair, but if you start to look at the ways your situation could be worse, you can then be more thankful that things aren’t as bad as they seem. So why worry?

As a child, I was always made fun of because of my first and middle names. I constantly worried that my teachers or family would use my given names to others and that would just be horrifying to me. I had asked my mother why she gave me the names that she did, and she told me that my first name was her father’s first name, and my middle name was my dad’s father’s middle name. That really didn’t stop me from worrying about other’s finding out my real name and the constant teasing and bullying that came from those names. In case you’re wondering what, my real name is, it’s Carlie Mackenzie Davis. The Davis part of my name is great, but the first and middle names are…well, embarrassing to me. I had asked my mother why she didn’t name me after my dad’s father’s first name and her father’s middle name, the realization of just how much worse my name could have been. I would have been named, Ego Wayne Davis. Thus, this issue could really have been worse than it was. Since that time, I’ve tried not to worry about anything because no matter what I’ve been through, it could always have been worse. You may be thinking that how could losing a loved one be worse than actually losing them? Well, it could have been worse if you had lost that loved one much earlier than now, so you didn’t have as much time with them in your life as you had. How could it be worse if you just lost a job you loved and you can’t find one you love just as much? It could be worse if you couldn’t find a job at all or that no one would hire you. How could it be worse if you’ve lost everything including your home, and now you’re homeless? It could be worse if you didn’t have your car to live in or a shelter to go to, instead you had to sleep out in the open without anything to eat and no one to help. God is always there for us and because of this, we should never wane in our faith of Him. We can’t give up on Him!