The Sin of Worry

“‘Do not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor for your body, as to what you shall put on’” (Matthew 6:25).

Someone has said, “You can’t change the past, but you can ruin a perfectly good present by worrying about the future.” Worry does ruin the present, but even more important for the believer is to recognize that worry is sin. Let’s look at why that is so.

Worry means you are striking out at God. Someone might say, “Worry is a small, trivial sin.” But that’s not true. More important than what worry does to you is what it does to God. When you worry, you are saying in effect, “God, I just don’t think I can trust You.” Worry strikes a blow at God’s integrity and love for you.

Worry means you are disbelieving Scripture. You can say, “I believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. I believe in the verbal, plenary inspiration of every word,” and then just live your life worrying. You are saying you believe the Bible, but then worry about God fulfilling what He says in it.

Worry means you are being mastered by circumstances. Let the truths of God’s Word, not your circumstances, control your thinking. By worrying, you make the circumstances and trials of life a bigger issue than your salvation. If you believe God can save you from eternal Hell, also believe He can help you in this world as He has promised.

Worry means you are distrusting God. If you worry, you’re not trusting your Heavenly Father. And if you’re not trusting Him, perhaps it’s because you don’t know Him well enough. Study God’s Word to find out who He really is and how He has been faithful to supply the needs of His people in the past. Doing so will help give you confidence for the future. Allow His Word to indwell you richly so that you aren’t making yourself vulnerable to Satan’s temptations to worry.

I used to live on a constant treadmill or worry, repent, worry, repent, worry again, repent again......

I could not seem to get victory over it.

So I was praying about it one day and God showed me that I was worried because I felt that I couldn’t control things and I was worried about what could happen. It was a control issue.

OK. So where did that lead?

He then showed me that I was worrying because I wasn’t trusting HIM to take care of the situation. I was floored cause I never saw it as a lack of trust in God (to do what was good and the right thing, as opposed to the thing I wanted).

When I repented of the lack of trust in God, the worry just evaporated.

It was life changing because it was then I realized there were what I call root sins and symptom sins. The root sin was lack of trust. The symptom sin was worry.

When I addressed the root sin, the symptom sin disappeared.

I am still prone to worry (old habits die hard) but when I catch myself, I CHOOSE to trust God instead of worry about it.

And it occurred to me. Who better to control to control things? Me? Who didn’t even have a grip on myself and couldn’t even control myself and knew nothing about all the intricacies of the situations around me? Or God, the omniscient, omnipotent, loving heavenly father who knew the beginning from the end and worked all things to my good?

It was a no brainer.

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