e what the
sacred writers have to say upon this subject. If they commend it, we
may assume that it will be safe to worry. If they rebuke or reprobate
it we may be equally assured that we have no right to indulge in it.
St. Paul seemed to have a very clear idea of worry when he said:
Be careful--[full of care]--for nothing, but in everything by
prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your requests
known unto God. _Philippians_ 4:6.
How inclusive this is--full of care, anxiety, fretfulness, worry about
_nothing_, but in _everything_ presenting your case to God. And then
comes the promise:
And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall
keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. _Phil_. IV. 7.
How clear, definite, full and satisfactory. What room for worry
is there in a heart full of the peace of God, which passeth all
understanding? And oh, how much to be desired is such an experience.
Browning, in his _Abt Vogler_, sings practically the same sweet song
where he says:
Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear,
Each sufferer says his says, his scheme of the weal and woe:
But God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear;
The rest may reason and welcome; 'tis we musicians know.
If God whispers in the ear of the sufferer, the doubter, the
distressed, the worried, the peace must come; and if peace come, it
matters not what others' reasoning may bring to them, the knowledge
that God has whispered is enough; it brings satisfaction, content,
serenity, peace. The opposite of worry is rest, faith, trust, peace.
How full the Bible is of promises of rest to those who know and love
God and his ways of right-doing. Mendlessohn took the incitement of
the psalmist (Psalm 37:7), "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for
him," and made of it one of the tenderest, sweetest songs of all time.
Full of yearning over the worried, the distressed, the music itself
seems to brood in sympathetic and soothing power, as a mother croons
to her fretful child: "Why fret, why worry,--No, no! rest, rest my
little one, in the love of the all-Father," and many a weary, fretful,
worried heart has found rest and peace while listening to this sweet
and beautiful song.
There is still another passage in holy writ that the perpetual worrier
should read and ponder. It is the prophet Isaiah's assurance that God
says to His children: "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I
comfor
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