How Are You Handling Worry?

The other day I answered a phone call, and the first words I heard were "Victoria, I have to tell you something, but don't worry about it." Well, my automatic response was to worry and think, What's wrong now? As it turned out, the problem was not so big, but I had to push pause for a moment and make the decision to not let my mind start to spin with worry. I had to give it to God and rest in Him, knowing He is in control of the situation and that He is fighting my battles for me.

Did you know that the word worry comes from the Old English wyrgan, which means "to strangle?"  If we let them, worry and stress literally choke the joy out of our lives. So how are you handling worry?

I worked with a woman whose military son had been deployed overseas in a very dangerous place. She was so worried for him that it began to affect everything in her life to the point where she could hardly function. I said to my friend, "Look, there's nothing you can do about his situation, but you can come to a place of peace and rest in the Lord." We began to pray together, and then I told her she needed to get some scriptural declarations ready to wage warfare when worry tried to strangle her joy and peace. She wrote them down to declare out loud when she felt the stress building: "God, thank You that my son is in the palms of Your hands. No weapon formed against him will prosper. Father, thank You that Your angels have charge over him to keep him in all his ways. He won't even dash his foot against a stone, but he'll tread upon the lion and the cobra! Thank You, Father, for putting a blood line around him that the enemy cannot cross. Thank You, Lord, that my son will come home safely."

As she put this into practice, she began to take control over that worry little by little, and her focus and resolve came back. She began to praise God in the midst of her fear, and it made all the difference. Worry pulls us away from God's power, but worship draws us to Him, and His presence changes us. I'm happy to report that after six years serving in the military, her son came home safely!

by Victoria Osteen