Jesus On The Irrelevance Of Worry Series

I’ve seen my kids suffering and dying. I’ve seen my life destroyed by some stupid sin that I committed. I’ve seen myself buried under 6 feet of sand in a small pine box and wondered how I would feel down there, and what that would be like, and how my family would feel to get the news that I was gone. I have seen our planet devastated by war, nuclear and otherwise. I have seen myself dying of every known disease. (Strangely, I don’t know that I ever imagined what it would be like to have MS – you never end up worrying about the things that actually happen. When they do happen, they’re not really like what you worried about anyway.) I have seen every natural disaster imaginable, even including the sun expanding and enveloping the earth, even including a meteor hitting earth and darkening out the sun so that we all freeze to death). I have seen myself huddled in my basement with my family and a few bottles of water, some duct tape, some plastic, and a couple cans of beans, struggling to survive the aftermath of – whatever. Any and everything.

With all this focusing on all these terrible things, you’d think by now I’d know exactly what I’d do in case of every possible emergency. You’d think I’d have a master plan. But I don’t. Not even close. You know why?

The words anxious and worry both come from words that mean, “to choke.” I have not developed any kind of plan because 1) you can’t come up with a plan for everything that can go wrong in this life – let’s face it, a LOT can go wrong!; and 2) because I have spent a lot of my life choking. If I came up to you right now and put my hand around your neck and began choking you, what would your plan be? Your “plan” would probably be pretty shortsighted – probably a one-item plan to figure out a way to get some oxygen. That’s what worry has done in my life. When I have been worrying about all these things during all these terrible times of my life, I have not been formulating plans about what to do and how to deal with everything. I just wanted some air. I just wanted to be able to breathe. I just wanted to be able to go out to dinner with my family on a nice spring day and enjoy my time with them without seeing them all dead in my mind, in living color.

I have spent vast portions of my life being choked by worry. Worry has robbed me of some of the best moments life has to offer. Worry has turned beauty into horror again and again. Worry has tied my hands, kept me from being as effective as I could be in my family, in my job, in my writing, in my music, and in my relationship with God. Any of you ever talk to me and go away thinking, “Man, that guy’s intense.” Try carrying around the stuff I’ve carried around most of my life and living happily and carefree. You can’t do it.

I’m sorry to do this to you. Spending parts of my life worrying about all of these things has not been pleasant. It isn’t pleasant for me now to talk about, and I know it’s not pleasant for you to hear about. And I know not everybody struggles with fear on anywhere near the level that I have struggled with it. But one thing is certain. We all have our fears. We all have our worries. We have all choked on anxiety.