December 07, 2012
Not To Worry
A recent blood test showed my husband’s PSA is on the rise again. Dr.
Chipman, his oncologist, is a positive and enthusiastic sort of man and he knew
from my questions that I was concerned. “Look,
I don’t want you to worry. I’m the one who worries.” He laughed, “That’s what you pay me for!” I told him
I could go with that, but only so far, I really hadn’t seen him doing any
worrying. We both laughed and he assured me that when it is time to worry, he
would worry. Maybe that’s the same problem some of us have when we give our
problems over to God. We know the Lord has everything under control, but we’re
still looking for evidence that He is doing the worrying. Jesus asks, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour
to his life?” (Matt 26:27 NIV)
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Gail;
-----We worry when we do not want what will possibly happen. There is nothing wrong with not wanting what is uncomfortable, that is, if it is also unbeneficial. So, as long as there remains something which can be done to obstruct a bad occurrence, the mental engagement needed to make that obstruction is not worry. Worry begins when discovered insights are not acted upon. And it is the mental activity which happens beyond our ability to assess possibilities. It is what happens when there is little or no possibility of what we want. And its feelings pour us down a drain into a seemingly bottomless puddle where nothing is very well discernable, yet everything is more than scary.
-----I guess it would be callous of me to say, “Want the cancer if you have the cancer.” Nobody wants the worst. And that should drive us to work hard to avoid the worst. But if the worst which can not be avoided, even the worst which happens simply because we did nothing to avoid it does befall us, then the worst has become true. There is something right about true. Something restful. Although “never give up” is always good to do, when there is nothing that can be done, not doing anything is not giving up. It is just being true. And although the worst that is befalling us may deplete our vital necessities, that will be the new reality. If a person has learned to desire the truth above all things, when what is not comfortable happens there will be room in your desires for it, because it has just become part of the truth.
-----That is the adjustment humility makes to displace worry. It is not necessarily a resignation to an unending, bad situation, but a resignation to a currently unchangeable one. It is not a resignation to ending the search for a situation’s fix, it is a resignation from searching unfertile ground. It links real feelings to a real situation where real thinking will be more effective. For feeling your part in reality is feeling your part in the truth. And the truth is a place big enough to turn all the feelings you have into joy, because the more you search it the more you locate Christ in your situation. After all, He is the truth.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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