Praying the Worry Away

“If you prayed as much as you worry, you’d have nothing to worry about.”

~Rick Warren

As far as polar opposites go, and, in this frame, it’s the issue of thinking, prayer and worry separate each other as far as East is to West.

Our default approach, of course, is to worry. We seem to have such natural propensity for stewing over things. And if it isn’t the conscious concern that threatens to derail us, our subconscious does it by unconscious anxiety—a tension we cannot explain nor repress, but we do feel it.

We can acknowledge that prayer can ameliorate the conscious sense of worry. We only have to think of doing it. We too often forget. Making it an unconscious habit is our key.

Prayer does something about worry.

Conversing With God Or Our Madness

Each has the same opportunity, in each of our moments, and it’s up to us which way we will use our minds. Will we think with God through prayer, or will we think with our madness—encircling and transfiguring, again and again, our worries?

The problem with our world, which is intensified in our inner worlds, is there’s no shortage of reason for concern. The more caring we are, and the more feeling and thinking, the more we are disposed to our worrisome mind-language.

We can see, all the more, our need of prayer. We can see how much we need God in order to deal with our daily concerns—these things we usually cannot do much about.

It’s true we should worry about some things; to deal with issues we are responsible for with sufficient care and concern. But where our worry exceeds our direct ability to act it’s a waste of time.

Regarding all things of concern, what do we do—go to God in prayer or continue to stress unnecessarily? Prayer is the only sane choice.

Prayer – The Worry Miracle

Because prayer effectively combats our worry, providing us the perfect sounding board, it is a worry miracle.

It takes our worries and converts them, miraculously, into peaceful vestiges of accepted moments of faith. Prayer, the worry miracle, uses something so infinite to project our concerns upon: the Lord our God. Only God is big enough to encapsulate all our concerns; the whole world’s concerns are not too big.

The accepted moment of faith, as a result of prayer, is that strange feeling of peace. It can only be attributed to God. Only God can convert the worry into peace when we use the worry miracle.

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Instead of worrying we can as easily pray. Casting our worries into the wind through prayer lets God catch them and convert them, for us, into peace.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.