Why You Worry, and How to Overcome

Dr. Randy White

Worry is a continual problem for some people. Here’s a few insights into why you worry, and a word on how to overcome your worry addiction.

You worry because you listen to everyone except God

Most worriers I know need to quit listening to all the chatter around them. These worriers originally picked up their worry from some external source: the weatherman, the internet, the news channel, their crazy Aunt Jane, or the bestselling Christian book that spelled out the doom of the stock market. From wherever the source, these people confirm what they heard by checking the internet, find it to be “true,” and rush out to buy another case of canned corn in order to make sure they make it through the coming economic earthquake, totalitarian regime, and nuclear winter, prayerful that they will not be the first to go to the mysterious FEMA camps set up to house the dissident Christians.

Friend, if you listen to all the hysteria-fueled websites, radio programs, and urgent messages of discernment prophets, you’ll be buying gold, stocking up on ammo, and worrying yourself to an early grave.

You worry because when you listen to God, you don’t do it from the Bible

There are plenty of worriers that listen to God, at least they think. They enter their prayer closet and wait for a “still, small voice” in which God confirms what they read in the bestseller or heard from Aunt Jane.

Let me be blunt: that wasn’t God talking. I don’t know if it was your inner psyche, a mental illusion, or the bowl of banana pudding you had before bedtime, but it wasn’t God. I don’t really care how spiritual it seemed, how confident you are that it was God, or how confirmed it was in the circumstances around you, but it wasn’t God. In a moment, I’ll tell you how I unequivocally know that it wasn’t God.

But first, why do you think God speaks in a “still, small voice?” I hear so many people say that God spoke to them, and then immediately give a qualification: It wasn’t audible. If you believe God speaks, why don’t you believe God speaks audibly? Why do you limit Him to inaudible (unverifiable) still, small voices? After all, if you want to be Biblical you will find that only once in all the 4,000 years of Bible history did God ever speak in a “still, small voice.” But scores of times God spoke audibly, unmistakably, and verifiably.  If you believe God is speaking, let Him speak audibly. Don’t put him in a “still, small voice” box.

Audibility has way too much accountability. I suppose this is why we prefer God in a still, small voice box. But the Scriptures themselves actually claim that they are able to make one “perfect, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:17). If this is true, then by necessity God only speaks through Scripture. I affirm the sufficiency of Scripture, and if sufficiency is really sufficient, then I don’t need another word from Him, whisper or otherwise.

I have God’s word in the 66 books of the Holy Bible. I’ve found that, knowing the Word, it gives me every degree of confidence I need to face life today and everyday. It give me all the wisdom I need to make every decision that comes my way. I can stand on the Word of God and overcome worry, fear, timidity, and (may I say) downright stupidity.

You worry because when you read the Bible, you do it wrong

Most Christians I know take a “name it and claim it” approach to reading the Bible. When they read the Bible they search for a sin to confess and a promise to claim. In the end, they end taking promises and requirements that were never theirs to begin with. This causes them to doubt their own faith or doubt the Word, and feeds their worry. When a solid Bible teacher comes along and teaches them to take Scripture in context and to interpret it literally, they whine that “he’s taken away all my promises.” They would rather stand in the false comfort of a promise that isn’t theirs than redirect their thinking toward what the Bible actually teaches so they stand on a sure foundation.

Remember the old chorus that said—

Every promise in the book is mine

every chapter, every verse, every line

From Genesis to Revelation

Every chapter, every verse and every line

They all are blessings, of his love, divine

Every promise, in the book, is mine

Such thinking, friend, will lead you to sore disappointment, either in yourself, in God, or in His Word. To claim Biblical promises that are not yours won’t work any better than if I promise you purple unicorns around your breakfast table.

Read the Bible in context, using grammar as your unflinching interpretive tool, and taking each word literally. When you do so, you will hear from God (it is HIS Word!), you will apply it correctly, and you will free yourself from worry.