“The little worries which we meet each day
May lie as stumbling-blocks across our way,
Or we may make them stepping-stones to be
Of grace; O Lord, to thee.”
When you are inclined to worry — don’t do it. That is the first things. No matter how much reason there seems to be for worrying, still, there is your rule. Do not break it: don’t worry. Matters may be greatly tangled, so tangled that you cannot see how they ever can be straightened out; still, don’t worry. Troubles may be very real and very sore, and there may not seem a rift in the clouds; nevertheless, don’t worry.
You say the rule is too high for human observance — that mortals cannot reach it; or you say there must be some exceptions to it — that there are peculiar circumstances in which one cannot but worry. But wait a moment. What did the Master teach? “I say unto you, be not anxious for your life… be not anxious for the morrow.” He left no exceptions. What did St. Paul teach? “In nothing be anxious.” He said not a word about exceptions to the rule, but left it unqualified and absolute. A good bit of homely, practical, common-sense wisdom says that there are two classes of things we should not worry about — things we can help, and things we cannot help. Evils we can help we ought to help. If the roof leaks, we ought to mend it; if the fire is burning low and the room growing cold, we ought to put on more fuel; if the fence is tumbling down, so as to let our neighbor’s cattle into our wheat-field, we had better repair the fence than sit down and worry over the troublesomeness of people’s cows; if we have dyspepsia and it make us feel badly, we had better look to our diet and our exercise. That is, we are very silly if we worry about things we can help. Help them. That is the heavenly wisdom for that sort of ills or cares: that is the way to cast that kind of burden on the Lord.
But there are things we cannot help. “Which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto his stature?” What folly, then, for a short man to worry because he is not tall, or for the woman to worry about the color of her hair, or for any one to worry because of any physical peculiarities he may have? These are types of a large number of things in people’s lives which no human power can change. Why worry about these? Will worrying do any good? So we come to the same result by applying this common-sense rule. Things we can make better we should make better, and not fret about them; and things we cannot help or change we should accept as God’s will for us, and make no complaint about them. This very simple principle, faithfully applied, would eliminate all worrying from our lives.
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