LESSON 5 - WORRY IS A RUSTY BLADE

Oh I know this piece comes close on the heels of the recent one posted. But I have made this promise to myself for the New Year --- which is that I will write more than what I have written in the past two years of blogging. So then, Blogspot, brace yourself for the onrush of new posts without constraint of time …other than the desire to write – write – write! Anyway let's get on with this. :-) (The lovely picture there is courtesy of Doug Evans of Canada, an old friend.)

“It is not work that kills men, it is worry. Work is healthy;
You can hardly put more on a man than he can bear.
But worry is rust upon the blade.
It is not movement that destroys the machinery, but friction.”
-Henry Ward Beecher

Friction is rubbing, chafing, abrasion, rasping, grating and resistance. Do we see ourselves something like that at some point in our lives? I’m sure that we all do. Not nice, huh? And the biggest friction there is in our lives is WORRY.

I don’t know where we ever got this or learned it from, but it has already become attached to living – worry is synonymous to a human being. Oh gee, isn’t that such a pessimistic and negative way of looking at a person?! Or even at life itself. A lot of friends I have talked to consider life and living as one big barrel of problems, trials, difficulties, tests, troubles, predicament or dilemma.

Oh but I’m not going to refute or disagree to that because I do know too that it is true. In fact, I think that there are tons and tons of issues and challenges that a person must deal with in his whole lifetime. No kidding. These could be minute issues or life-threatening or life-changing ones. And it may affect a person directly or indirectly in huge or small measure. But it is there as real as this bag of raisins I’m snacking on which, incidentally, is delicious!

Telling a person ‘not to worry’ is like asking him to tie his shoelaces with his mouth, or peel a banana with a thumb, or walk to the corner backwards with eyes closed! That --I wouldn’t even dare. Oh I know that somebody is going to tell me that we 'need' to worry to somehow get things done. Well, maybe that shouldn't be called 'worry'. Don't you think it's nicer to call it 'thinking your way through'? Thinking involves a good amount of mental activity. Worrying is definitely not thinking.

Still everybody worries; I do. I learned it when they started giving me homework in grade school. I worried that I wouldn’t get a star from my teacher, worried that I would see mom and dad frown at my report card, worried that my pet birdie would die, and worried that everybody would leave me and never come back. And when I grew up the worries just seem to grow bigger and bigger and plentiful. Nobody ever told me not to worry… I guess it’s because they too had their own worries to take care of. It showed on their faces, in their behavior, in their voices, and in the way they look at you. I could understand that; I was behaving just like them.

But now as I am much older I realize what a waste of time, effort, energy and life it is to worry. I see that nothing is ever achieved by knocking your brains out worrying. It won’t move mountains nor cause the sea to part nor make solutions pop up like magic nor improve your life a notch higher. No, worry does not bring about those things.

Worry though does cause something – a friction uniquely its own. It grates on your nerves, rubs old wounds open anew, saps you of productive energy, and drains away enthusiasm in a steady defeating stream.

Now I have learned the hard way that there is a better way to ‘worry’...

Give it your best shot with possible solutions within your control, worry not and PRAY. Leave the rest to God. And don’t ever think of worrying whether He will or He will not --- help. We know the answer to that, don’t we? Faith moves mountains. Worry is indeed rust upon the blade. Can't cut well with a rusty blade.