Worry…
Worry is a waste of energy and spiritual stupidity so says George McDonald…
“The next hour, the next moment, is as much beyond our grasp and as much in God’s care, as that a hundred years away. Care for the next minute is just as foolish as care for the morrow, or for a day in the next thousand years—in neither can we do anything, in both God is doing everything. Those claims only of the morrow which have to be prepared to-day are of the duty of to-day; the moment which coincides with work to be done, is the moment to be minded; the next is nowhere till God has made it….
The care that is filling your mind at this moment, or but waiting till you lay the book aside to leap upon you—that need which is no need, is a demon sucking at the spring of your life. ‘No; mine is a reasonable care—an unavoidable care, indeed!’ ‘Is it something you have to do this very moment?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then you are allowing it to usurp the place of something that is required of you this moment!’ ‘There is nothing required of me at this moment.’ ‘Nay, but there is—the greatest thing that can be required of man.’ ‘Pray, what is it?’ ‘Trust in the living God. His will is your life.’ ‘He may not will I should have what I need!’ ‘Then you only think you need it. Is it a good thing?’ ‘Yes, it is a good thing.’ ‘Then why doubt you shall have it?’ ‘Because God may choose to have me go without it.’”
From ‘Unspoken Sermons’
The Serenity Prayer:
God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.
“And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”
Mark 9:24 KJV