Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you.

If your faith is weak, open your Bible. Bow your head, tell God all your worries, ask Him to take away the fear and anxiety. Now read a Psalm, or Philippians. Choose a short verse you like, and write it down on index cards or sticky notes,  one word on each paper. Shuffle them together, and then put them into order. Listen to some classical music, hymns, or praise choruses on YouTube, or, if you are musical, learn your verse by giving it a tune. Change what is going on in your mind. I know a lot of people are extremely anxious about what comes next.

Take a deep breath. Jesus said Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Talk to God, not about your fears, instead have a gratitude session. If you can see, thank Him, because He didn’t have to let you. If you can hear, thank Him. Thank Him for your hands, for opposable thumbs, for toes. No kidding. Ask a diabetic who has lost one or two. Those toes are like the tiny rudder that steers a ship. They play a large part in maintaining balance.

Worry is a denigration of God’s character. By faith you trust He has saved you. That’s a pretty huge thing. If you can trust Him for salvation, since He went to the cross for you, do you think He is going to deny you your basic needs? Is your worry over someone else?  Talk to God about it. Don’t marinate in your worries. Fight that. Because God has not given us a spirit of fear, thus, if you have a spirit of fear eating you up, who do you think did send it. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. These are not just words. These are God’s promises.

God is just waiting for you to talk to Him, to ask Him the what-ifs, and the how’s and why’s. Worry to a certain degree is normal, but don’t feed it by let your mind stay on it. The Bible says God will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Him.

Worry doubts God’s heart. You accuse Him of not caring, when you worry. You doubt His power and His wisdom. Is that fair? Has He not provided? Has the devil gone up there and stolen His throne?

God did not give you an imagination so that you can imagine every bad thing that could happen. That’s bad stewardship. Imagine heaven, the loved one you will see again.

A whole lot of the stuff we worry might happen, don’t happen, and for goodness sake, why worry about stuff that already happened? What’s done is done.

Name one time God didn’t either provide what you need, or remove the need for whatever it was.

Name one thing you worried and fretted and stressed over, that was as horrific as to measure up to the amount of worry you put into it?

Would God ask you to do the impossible? No? Well, then it is not in fact true that you can’t help worrying. Because He tells us not to. He said cast your cares on Him, for He cares for you. He will not suffer the righteous to be moved. Are you “the righteous?” If you are saved, yes, you are the righteous. The righteousness of Jesus has been reckoned to your account.

Worry gives the devil a foothold. God commands us not to give the devil a foothold. He seeks to devour. Worry devours for him.

There’s a saying that sticks around because it is true. It is impossible to pray and worry at the same time.

When you worry, you not only fail to trust God, you are putting too much stock in yourself. That comes perilously close to idolatry and/or blasphemy.

Worrying doesn’t accomplish anything except making yourself miserable, and tells others the God you follow is not trustworthy. That is not just unfair to God, it is a bad-faced lie.

Worrying about what might happen is pretty presumptuous too. God didn’t promise you any tomorrows and doesn’t owe you any.

The size of one’s faith is a myth. There is no big faith or small faith. You either have faith in God, or you have no faith in God. Who made your body? Who made the two hands that you used to do your work? Your mind that you reason with. That mind has worked fine to get you through the demands of life. Those hands have nurtured, built, created.

When your thoughts keep going back to worries, change your thoughts. Ask yourself what specific thing you are worried about. Then imagine ways God could meet the need. Decide to face difficulty not as a problem, but an opportunity. A chance to see what God will do.

On January 6, 2021 America took a sharp turn. A jack knife. Things can sure change quickly. A woman named Ashley served 4 tours during her Air Force career. When she got dressed that morning, chose what to wear, ate her breakfast, she was probably looking forward with happy anticipation, to experiencing the rally. Her expectations vs what took place, were worlds apart. Being that she had served those 4 tours she seems like the kind of person who would not let the prospect of possible trouble get in the way of a potentially awesome day. In life, there is always risk.

This life, this world, that America, none of those are the purpose for which God made us. We have a different home, and another life to look forward to, as born-again Christians. Whatever stands between now and whatever day we get to that new home, God will get us through it. He will supply our needs. Don’t speculate. Keep living one day at a time, taking whatever each day brings. God will not ask anything of us that He won’t provide for us.

It is ok. There is sadness. Many of us are in mourning as it all sinks in.

I gaze across the back yard, seeing nothing but memories. The world feels different today. I feel so serene. There is a quality in the atmosphere around me that  I vaguely recognize. I feel it on those rare days, a clear Spring day, verging into summer, when the sun is bright and the sky is so blue and the clouds are big and fluffy. A warm breeze blows across me, and there it is, that exquisite sense of perfection that I can only attribute to being visited by God Himself and I close my eyes and savor the moment and I thank Him. I thank Him for the beauty of His creation, for my husband and kids and the future life beyond this one. It is the feeling of Heaven drawn near. That’s the feeling. I don’t care what God may ask me to endure. I can endure it knowing that somewhere on the other side of these final days, is eternity in that exquisite peace and perfection, forever after. They can have this world. They can have their transformation. They can have all that this finite Earth has to offer.Not one of those millionaires is richer than I am. They can’t take my peace and they can’t take my security, and they can’t take my joy. Those are safely kept in an “offshore account” insured by Jesus.

Take this World but Give me Jesus!