“Me? Worry? Fiddle-De-Dee!”
May 21, 2021
[Video text below:]
Hello, believers! I’m Julie Powers. We are continuing the discussion of cultivating joy in our lives and today, I want to talk about the thief of joy. And that thief is worry. W-O-R-R-Y.
When I was a teenager, I read the book by Margaret Mitchell, titled Gone With the Wind. I’ll be honest with you, the end of that story was pretty disappointing to my teenage mind. Rhett leaves Scarlett and Scarlett says essentially: “I can’t think about that right now. If I do, I’ll go crazy. I’ll think about that tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day.”
It wasn’t until decades later that I realized the wisdom of what she was doing. She was putting off the worry of what she was going to do until tomorrow. Turns out, that attitude has a biblical basis. Jesus’s famous teaching about worry is found in Matthew 6. But, Scarlett focused in on Matthew 6:34 (AMPC) and I am reading from the Amplified Bible translation.
34 So do not worry or be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have worries and anxieties of its own. Sufficient for each day is its own trouble.
How very true! I had a week that presented me with an opportunity to worry about something that I could not do anything about until next week. I admit that I lost sleep over it, and that was sheer foolishness. So, I employed the technique that we find in 1 Peter 5:7 (AMPC):
7 Casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully.
I cast the care of that situation onto God dozens of times, but then I would pick it back up again and fret about it. Then, I’d realize what I was doing and I’d cast the care of it on God again. Over and over and over I repeated that action. But, I soon discovered that I failed to deploy the part of the casting the care technique that is found in Psalm 37. This is the part about trusting and delighting in the Lord. Psalm 37:4-5 (AMPC) says:
4 Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the Lord [roll and repose each care of your load on Him]; trust (lean on, rely on, and be confident) also in Him and He will bring it to pass.
To trust and delight in the Lord means that I am spending time with Him – reading the Bible, praising Him, praying. So, I clicked on my bedside lamp and opened my Bible. I focused on God and what good things He has done in my life, not the situation that worried me. Then, I could sleep. I wish I had thought of that at 9:30 PM instead of 2:30 AM. But, the important thing was that I got there eventually.
There is a famous quote that is attributed to Benjamin Franklin that says: “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.” I generally agree with that because I am a take-action kind of girl. But, Jesus and Scarlett O’Hara have taught me a new exception to Ben Franklin’s rule. I can put off until tomorrow the worrying I am doing today. And then, when tomorrow comes, I will put that worry off another day. I can keep doing that until the day come that I can actually do something about the situation.
Scarlett gets a bad rap for saying: “After all tomorrow is another day.” Taken out of context, it sounds like procrastinating. But, procrastinating on when I am going to worry is a really great idea! How joyful would today be? How joyful would my life be if I put off worrying until tomorrow? And I did this every day?
As Scarlett might say, “Me? Worry? Fiddle-De-Dee!”
That is all for today. Visit my website jlpowersministries.com to find more content and remember, my friends, to cultivate joy!
