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   O  v  e  r  c  o  m  e
Overcoming worry & fear
By Andre Rabe
 Worry is an expectation that something harmful or unpleasant is going to hap-pen. Worry is a form of fear, but in an early stage. Fear is stronger than a vagueexpectation, it is a conviction. There is also a time element and difference be-tween worry and fear. We don’t usually worry about the past. For example peopledon’t worry about the accounts they paid yesterday, rather they worry about how to pay the accounts that are coming. Fear, although it also anticipates a harmfulfuture, is more acute because it is closer to now. Another example: A person mightbe fearful of spiders, but the fear will manifest more strongly when the spider isvisible and near because of the conviction that harm can be done at any moment- it is a present danger.Over the past 18 months there has been a major drive to promote worry andfear. The credit crisis, the instability of the world economy, major companies fail-ing, and thousands of people losing their jobs, seem to daily fill the headlines.The consistency with which these messages are communicated have fed worry andfor many, this has turned into more than just a niggling worry - it has becomefear: fear of an uncertain future; fear of losing a job, or fear of losing one’s lifesavings. Our sense of value determines to what extent fear has access to us.Hope and faith works almost exactly like worry and fear. Hope is an expectationthat something pleasant or beneficial is going to happen. Hope is faith in incuba-tion. People also don’t hope about the past - they don’t hope to pay bills that werepaid yesterday! Like hope, faith is also an expectation, but in its strongest form,namely a conviction of the reality of what was hoped for.Let’s look again at what Jesus said about these concepts of value, worry, fear andfaith:19-21”Don’t hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or—worse!—stolen by burglars.Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it’s safe from moth and rustand burglars. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is,is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.
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22-23”Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greedand distrust, your body is a dank cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have!24”You can’t worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you’ll end up hating theother. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can’t worship God andMoney both.25-26”If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that youdon’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in yourcloset are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in yourstomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body.Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, carelessin the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.27-29”Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so muchas an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes thatmuch difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields andlook at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen colorand design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.30-33”If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of  which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you,do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be sopreoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’tknow God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both Godand how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions.Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns willbe met.34”Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” Matthew 6 MSGImagine two dogs - one being fit and muscular, the other a skeleton of a dog, atthe point of death because of starvation. Worry is an animal that needs to be ha-bitually nourished to grow strong. The very attention we give to certain subjects,is the substance that feeds our fear. For many fear has become a strong guard dog,patrolling the perimeter of their thinking, and faith has become the scroungy skel-eton dog - at the point of starvation. What is needed is a way of taking away thenourishment from the one and giving it to the other.
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