5 Reasons We Hang on to Worry

Last night I caught myself beginning to worry about something in the near future. I had to stop and do what I know to do. Worry is a mental habit that needs to broken. My new book, Letting Go of Worry, offers practical steps to stop this bad habit.

But why do we worry when we know this is not part of God’s plan? The answer is the same for any dysfunctional behavior that we hang on to and do not release. It serves a purpose or we wouldn’t do it.

Here are a five reasons why we hold on to worry even though none of these reasons are really true. We falsely believe worry…

1) Stops bad things from happening—Worry has no impact on what happens in our lives. It doesn’t stop anything.

2) Prepares us for the worst outcomes-85% of the time what we worry about doesn’t come true so this is a lot of wasted energy.

3) Allows us to control external events- This isn’t possible. We can’t worry things into happening.

4) Is a way to show we care-Find another way that isn’t anti biblical teaching!

5) Feels like we are doing something -All we are doing is creating stress on our physical body and engaging in a behavior Jesus told us not to do.

Worry does none of these five things. Rather, worry takes a toll on our physical, emotional, relational and spiritual lives. Worry strangles (the literal meaning of the word) the joy out of life. Worry also interferes with our spiritual lives because it is based on doubting God. In order to worry, we have to give up trust and wonder if God is who He says He is. When trouble comes and we don’t understand, the temptation is to ascribe to God some negative motive like, He doesn’t care, He isn’t with me, or He caused the bad thing to happen.

So the first step of letting go worry is to give up the idea that worry is useful. When we truly believe that worry has no place in our lives, this is the beginning of freedom.