Worry: The Subtle Killer

“I work closely with my cousin, Pain. People find it impossible to ignore him—and pain most often opens the door for me. Then I—Worry—go to work on my human subject. Cousin Pain has access to every part of you—at least your body and mind. I’m limited to your mind, but when I finish with my victims, I have affected—even killed—many of their bodies.

“I admit that the Word of God—the Bible—exposes me, and your dictionary describes how I operate. I try to annoy, bother and harass you. To make you feel distressed in the mind—you know, anxious, troubled, or uneasy.

“I don’t have to look far for victims. Cousin Pain provides most of them. Take those with cancer or heart attacks. I’m so subtle. Most of you don’t know how the devil takes me—Worry—and uses me to torment you. Like ‘Will my cancer come back?’ ‘Will it be fatal?’ ‘What will happen to my wife/husband/kids if I die?’ ‘Will the next heart attack kill me?’ ‘Am I getting Alzheimer’s disease? Dementia?’ ‘Will I always be a victim of bullies?’ ‘Am I just a loser?’ ‘Does anyone really care whether I live or die?’

“Yes, my name is Worry. And those are just a few of the 10,000 questions that God’s adversary uses to turn me loose to shake, rattle and scare you half to death.

“We work in stages. There’s Pain—and me, Worry. Then there are the other two cousins. Grief and Depression. You’ll meet them later. And, of course, there’s the real monster in the family—you might accurately call him a devil himself—Suicide. With four of us, you just might escape our clutches and control by reaching out to that awesome Jesus who is always reaching out to you. That’s why the one Jesus defeated is so desperate to seduce any victims with his biggest lie of all—that suicide is the only way out. Satan! What a liar!

“But back to me, Worry. I can operate only as long as Satan can divert your gaze from Jesus. You’re the reason God sent Him. And I admit—Jesus is more than talk. He has the power to blow me—Worry—out of your life in a moment of time. In fact, it happens again and again. He even turns every negative thing that Pain and I, Worry, throw at you into a positive.  ‘Does anyone really care whether I live or die?’ one worrywart asked. And Jesus showed him His nail-pierced hands and answered, ‘I do! Enough to have died for you!’ That guy’s worry vanished in a hurry.

“Then there were two others of you humans that I was killing with worry. God’s Holy Spirit broke through, they cried out to Jesus to save them and, wham, they were born again. And then Jesus Christ told them He could heal them. But even if they died, He guaranteed them eternal life in a pain-free, glorious Kingdom of heaven where there will be no more death, sorrow, crying or pain. You know that scripture in Revelation 21:4. Another door that I, Worry, had closed in my face.

“On and on it goes. Even that old couple I tried to worry to their graves. ‘Alzheimer’s! Dementia! Old age problems!’ I kept repeating. Then they took hands in prayer, placed their fingers over 1 Peter 5:7 and told God that since He cared for the birds and the flowers, they trusted He would care for them. And they committed the rest of their days to loving Christ and His Word. Another eviction notice for me—no more worries about tomorrow.

“And those young people. Like the one worrying over being bullied and called a loser. She discarded the baloney taught in school—you know, the fairy tale called evolution where the princess kisses a frog and it turns into a prince—and asked Jesus to be her Savior and friend.

“Of course, God never says no to a thirsty heart. He not only saved her soul but changed her life. She started concentrating on Jesus making her a winner and, well…I Worry was out of a job. And she was on her way to witnessing about the miracle of God’s love in her life. She even told her story on the internet and forgave the bullies!

“That’s what happens when you humans call out to Christ. Worries become non-existent, or else manageable, as God reveals His love, step by step, day by day.

“But now I, Worry, have to step aside. It’s time for cousin Grief to expose his operation. You’ll find him both friend and foe. Once again, the awesome God who cares about you can use cousin Grief to heal you. Or the devil can use grief to tell you his constant lie that your life is hopeless. As always, the choice will be yours.”

"Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ" (I Corinthians 11:1)
The ST. PAUL SCHOOL, with Frank Eiklor, Eileen Young and Cecilia Contreras