I want to talk to you today about getting out from under the weight of worry. And just so we’re on the same page, let’s define worry this way: Worry is the act of letting what’s out of our hands take control our minds. It’s allowing things we have no control over to exert control over us.
And let me just be real with you. Even though I consider myself a man of faith and even though I believe God has given me a certain gift of faith, worry is something I struggle with on a regular basis. But I think I came by it naturally. My dad was a worrier, but his dad was at another level. My grandfather, George Arnold Smith, was a world-class worrier. He also struggled his whole adult life with stomach ulcers and everybody in my family said it was because of how much he worried. I wasn’t sure that was really true, so I looked it up and what studies have found is that worry doesn’t directly cause stomach ulcers, but it does inhibit the body’s ability to deal with infections in the stomach lining, which leads to ulcers. So my family was pretty much right: he worried so much, it gave him long-term stomach problems. Worry can have a profound impact on our lives. In fact, I heard someone say once that worry fills the future with fear and robs the present of peace. Check out the full message here:
