WORRY

Today's gem is by R. J. Miller and as relevant today as it was when it was written over 100 years ago. 

WORRY . . . we live in a society that worries a great deal. We worry about money, jobs, security, housing, food on the table, our children, our futures, ourselves, the world in general . . . and the list goes on.

A recent study revealed that young people today are worrying more than ever.  Many feel that their future is bleak . . . at a time when they should be carefree and enjoying life, many are worrying to the point of illness. 

R. J. Miller wrote the piece below before World War One and he was concerned about the level of worry in society — what would he say about 2017. 

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An English writer calls worry the disease of the age. 

It is not a normal, but an unwholesome condition. In a perfectly healthy state one does not worry — but has the simple trust of a little child.

I want to talk to young people on this subject. But do young people ever worry? It would seem that they should not, that youth is free from care and discontent. Youth is the season of inexperience. Every day brings its new and strange things, its questions, its lessons, its mysteries, its disappointments, its fears. I need not go into the reasons for it — but the fact is that young people are quite as apt to worry as older people are. (and we know that young people are worrying more than every before)

The time to learn any life-lesson is in youth. All habits, good and bad, are formed then. If you are going to pass through life without worry, now is the time to begin. If you let yourself become anxious and restless in the bright early days — you will probably go through life in the same unhappy way.

Have you ever thought of the way worry hurts and spoils a life? We cannot help growing older in years — but there is no reason why we should ever grow old in spirit. Yet worry makes people old in spirit, even in the days of youth when they should be as happy as birds.

Not only does worry make one age — but it takes the brightness out of life — the song, the joy, the enthusiasm. It covers the face with wrinkles. Our moods make our faces!

You know perfectly well that worry is entirely useless.

It never did anybody any good. It does not take away the thing you worry about. Worry about health never made anyone more healthy. Worry about the hardness of one's work never made the work any lighter. "Ah — but you don't know my circumstances," some forlorn young fellow says, "or you wouldn't talk about the uselessness of worry." But, honestly, fellows, did you ever find a particle of help in worrying? Did it ever do you any good? "Be anxious for nothing," is the Bible teaching. The emphasis is on the word "nothing." There is absolutely nothing that we are ever to worry about!

It has been shown many times that a large amount of the worries people have, are about things that never really come to them. "Ills that never happened, have chiefly made men wretched," wrote an old poet.

Many dreaded troubles vanish as we move quietly toward them. Stones which we suppose block our course are rolled away as we approach. In any case we hear the Master's word, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own!”

There are hard points in every life that is worth while — but when we come to them through faithfulness and diligence we shall always find a way to meet them victoriously. I would urge the young people, therefore, to put worry down among the things that are positively not to be admitted into their lives.

Worry is the mother of a long list of evils. Only think to how many dangers it leads. The man who worries will never reach the finest things in attainment or achievement. Whatever you do — do not worry; put worry down in the list of things that are never to be indulged in, never to be thought of as possible.

Some of you would like to ask me how to learn not to worry. Perhaps you imagine that it takes a great deal of grace to do it. We need grace in everything. Without divine help we never can do anything. But some people expect God to do things for them, which they must do for themselves.

It is told of a great Christian scholar, that he was a very early riser. A young clergyman was talking to the old man about this habit and lamenting that he could not learn to rise early. "Tell me how you do it — I suppose you pray a great deal about it."

"No," said the godly man, "I get up.”

Of course, you will pray about this — but the thing for you is — not to pray about it, but — not to worry!