"OH, MY CHILDREN! My husband! How can they live without me?"
20. Worry "OH, MY CHILDREN! My husband! How can they live without me?"
I was in a hospital in a large town in the United States, and my friend Ann was very ill. She knew it and she did not tell me about her suffering, but about the greatest worry she had. "Just imagine that I should die—who would take care of my family?" I held her hand in mine and just prayed for her. Then suddenly, I remembered a little poem.
Said the Robin to the Sparrow:
"T should really like to know Why these anxious human beings Rush around and worry so."
Said the Sparrow to the Robin: "Friend, I think that it must be That they have no heavenly Father Such as cares for you and me."
ELIZABETH CHENEY
The Bible tells us:
Look at the birds in the sky. They neither sow nor reap nor store away in barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
See Luke 12:24
JESUS IS VICTOR 369
Aren't you much more valuable to Him than they are? Can any one of you, however much he worries, make himself an inch taller? And why do you worry about clothes? Consider how the flowers grow. They neither work nor weave, but I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was never arrayed like one of these. Now, if God so clothes the flowers of the field which are alive today and discarded tomorrow, is He not much more likely to clothe you—you of little faith? Don't worry at all, then, about tomorrow. Tomorrow can take care of itself. One day's trouble is enough for one day.
I could easily understand that her children and her husband were reasons to worry about the future. However, our times are in God's hands, and He loves her family even more than she loved them. Worrying is carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength—carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow—it empties today of its strength.
"Do you know, Ann, I do not believe that worry is from the Lord. It is from the enemy. There has been a man upon the earth of whom Satan is afraid, a man whom he can neither touch nor resist—Jesus Christ. And that is why we can go to Him for help. You are not able to overcome worry, but the Lord Jesus can, and He will—through His Holy Spirit. When we see that worry is a sin—and that is what it really is, for the Bible tells us not to worry—then we know what to do with sin, don't we?"
"Yes, we take it to the Lord, and when we confess our sins, the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all of our sins."
"That is true, so just ask forgiveness for having worried, and then ask Jesus to keep worry away. He gives us peace under all circumstances. I have a little stick here that cannot stand on my hand by itself. But I can even let it stand on the top of my finger, if my hand holds it. In the same way, we cannot keep worry away, but when we surrender to the wounded hands of Jesus, He keeps us from falling. One day He will present us blameless and with unspeakable joy. That will be on the day when He will reveal Himself. Jesus is stronger than all of our problems."
I prayed with Ann and then she said, "I have much to think about and I know one thing—I am not able, but Jesus is. He will do the job."
Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.
Psalms 55:22