“Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.”Philippians 4:6-7 (MSG)
“Don’t worry” may be the most difficult command in the Bible to keep. Every one of us has worried. We disobey that command all the time, because it's in our nature to worry.
Jesus said it like this: “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34 NIV). Are you messing up today by spending your emotional energy regretting the past and worrying about the future?
Worry has never changed anything. Worry is worthless! It can't change the past. It can't control the future. Worry can only make you unhappy today. Every moment you spend worrying is a wasted moment of your life.
Worry focuses on your fears instead of trusting God. It’s practical atheism. When you worry, you're acting like an orphan. You're acting like you don't have a heavenly Father who's promised to care for your needs. When you worry, you think it's up to you to take care of your problems. That's not in the Bible—that's in self-help books. And it's just not true.
If you're going to break the habit of worry in your life, you're going to have to learn how to focus on something else. In the Bible, God’s people often used fasting and prayer as a way to focus—or refocus—on God and not on themselves or what was happening around them. Fasting—where you abstain from something for a certain amount of time and let your need draw you closer to God—can help you do that. So can prayer.
The Bible says in Romans 8:6, “If people’s thinking is controlled by the sinful self, there is death. But if their thinking is controlled by the Spirit, there is life and peace” (NCV).
You have to choose your focus. If you focus on your problems, you’re going to get worried, fearful, and anxious. If you focus on God, and with the help of God's Spirit in you, you don't have to worry. Keeping your focus on God leads to life and peace.
The key to overcoming worry is not to say, “I'm not going to worry.” That’s never going to work, because you're focused on what you don't want.
The key is to change the channel. Don't resist it. Refocus. Put your focus on God, and trust in his love and promises for you.
Rick Warren is an innovative pastor, renowned author, and global influencer known for founding Saddleback Church, the Purpose Driven Network, the PEACE Plan, and Hope for Mental Health. He has written several best-selling books, including The Purpose Driven Life, which has sold over 35 million copies in 200 languages. Time magazine named Warren the most influential spiritual leader in America and one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Since stepping down from the lead pastor role at Saddleback in 2022, Warren has continued to inspire people through his Daily Hope Devotional and podcast Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope. His first book in a decade, Created to Dream, was released in April 2023.
For more Daily Hope with Rick Warren, please visit pastorrick.com!
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Rick Warren is the founding pastor of Saddleback Church in Southern California with campuses in major cities around the world. He is the author of The Purpose Driven Life, which has been translated into 90 languages and sold more than 50 million copies in all formats. You can listen to his daily radio broadcast at PastorRick.com.
