Worrying or Praying?
I heard this clearly from God this morning: “Spend so much time in prayer that you don’t have time to worry about it.”
BOOM!!! Busted by my Father in Heaven!!
Yes, I was caught worrying. Been there. Done that. Own the proverbial t-shirt. In fact, I have an entire section of those t-shirts in my spiritual closet.
In my own defense, I was praying—or at least I thought I was. What I was actually doing was convincing God that I knew He would accomplish all that concerns me (Ps. 138:8) by repeating that over and over again.
So God did a very on brand thing for Him—He lovingly challenged me to stop using meaningless repetition like the Gentiles do (Mt. 6:7) and write down a very specific list of everything that concerns me and submit that specific list to him in prayer.
Guess what?!?!
The simple act of getting all of that out of my head and onto a piece of paper allowed me to unload all of my anxiety onto Him (1 Pe 5:6-7). He loves doing that because he cares for us!
Then came the admonition: get so focused on praying for this specific list of things that you don’t have time anymore to worry about them. Then follow along and cross them off as I accomplish them.
This reminds me of something I heard Dr. Charles Stanley say many years ago: “Worry is misplaced prayer.”
1 Peter 5:6-7
6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, 7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.