Jesus said, “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?” (Matthew 6:27). Worry cannot produce a better tomorrow or change yesterday, but it can spoil a perfectly good today.
It is impossible to list a single benefit from worry. Someone said, “Worry is like rocking chair; it will give you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere.”
Someone gave this estimate of what most people worry about: Things that never happen, 49%; things over the past that can’t be changed by all the worry in the world, 30%; needless health worries, 12%; petty, miscellaneous worries, 10%; real, legitimate worries, 8%.
We doubt if there is any such thing as a “real, legitimate worry,” since the Bible says in Philippians 4:6, “Be careful for nothing … ” The literal meaning is “don’t worry about even one thing.”
WORRY IS UNWISE
There are three reasons why worry is unwise: 1. It is harmful to one physically, mentally, and emotionally; 2. It makes one a poor steward of his time and energy; 3. It shows a lack of faith in our Heavenly Father’s care for us and in the integrity of His promises.
Dr. W. C. Alvarez, a stomach specialist at Mayo Clinic, said, “Eighty percent of the stomach disorders that come to the clinic are not organic but functional … most of all ills are caused by worry and fear, and it is my experience that faith is more important than food in the cure of stomach ulcers.”
The renowned Dr. Charles Mayo himself said, “Worry affects the circulation, the heart, the glands, the whole nervous system; and it profoundly affects the health.”
Another medical doctor said, “Worry sets up a general disorganization of the system, makes and liberates all sorts of bodily poisons, throws glands and their functions all out of gear, and lowers the resistance to the very edge of limpness … prolonged and great worry may mean an eventual breakup, flabby heart, hardened arteries, premature senility, paralysis of the will which may ultimately lead to suicide.”
Worry wastes energy. A large industrial firm discovered that nine out of ten cases of workers inefficiency were caused by worry.
Worry produces imaginary troubles and often gives a small thing a big shadow. Someone once said, “To worry about what we can’t help is useless; to worry about what we can help is stupid.”
WORRY IS UNNECESSARY
Jesus said in Matthew 6:25-26, “Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?”
Later in the same chapter, the Lord promised us food and clothing, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (verse 33). Since the Father ” … knoweth that ye have need of all these things” (verse 32), and since He has promised that ” … these things shall be added unto you” (verse 33), then worry is unnecessary.