by Linus Mundy
“I can’t. God can. I think I’ll let God.” I came upon those words at the bottom of the last pile of psychology and religion and self-help books I was going to consult. I came upon them behind the door of the last doctor’s office I could force myself to visit. I came upon them on the lips of the umpteenth caring friend I was going to unload on. In the end, I’m sorry to admit, those words were everywhere—but I had to be desperate to see and really hear them.
The fact that you are reading this CareNote may mean that you, too, are desperate. Maybe you’re afraid you’re going to lose your job, or your spouse, your leg, your house. Maybe you’re worried about the way your furnace or your car or your lungs make those strange sounds on cold mornings. Or maybe you see someone else’s peace and happiness slipping away.
Working your way through. There’s another neat saying I came across during my marathon search for THE answer to my anxieties: “Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t really get you anywhere.” It’s easy to see the truth in that saying. And yet it’s also easy to give in to our natural tendencies to keep on worrying.
So what is an answer that can “get you somewhere” in tackling your worries? I suggest it may be the same three-part answer which brought me peace in all my turmoil: “I can’t. God can. I think I’ll let God.” Let’s look at and “test” each part of this message for your particular situation:
Say “I can’t”—but make sure it’s true that you can’t. We’ve all heard the expressions “God helps those who help themselves” and “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Well, sometimes the tough can’t get going; sometimes we can’t help ourselves. Often, purely human resources are totally inadequate.
But sometimes we can do more than we think we can. Have we really tried everything? Or are we giving up on ourselves too soon?
Sometimes I think we don’t know the difference between not being able to do something and not wanting to do something. I’ve always been good at that: “But I can’t go to the dentist.” (Meaning: “I’m
a chicken; I don’t want to get hurt.”) “Why go to a counselor? I know what he’ll tell me anyway.” (Meaning: “He’s going to tell me to change something—and that’s too hard.”)
So go ahead and say, “I can’t,” but only when it’s true.
Say “God can”—and believe it. We don’t have to believe that God takes care of every little thing in our lives. Or that God always turns everything around for us and we live happily ever after without even having to die first. I believe we do have to die first—at least figuratively—whether it’s a little, or a lot. I know I had to.
God doesn’t give us everything—only that which is important. When the diagnosis we get is the one we worried about, God won’t change it and switch the X-rays with someone else’s. But God will supply the strength to help us move purposefully toward beating the verdict—or accepting it.
So do we really believe that “God can”? Do we truly believe that God loves us? That, really, is the eternal question, the question that can lead us to the ultimate answer.
Say “I think I’ll let God”—including the God within you. “Letting God” has a lot to do with letting go. And some of the guys who do this best are monks. Two central goals of monasticism are dying to self and letting go of attachments. As a matter of fact, Buddhist monks teach that suffering arises from attachment—to possessions, to the physical, to our ego, to our false sense of control.
In a culture that tells us to treasure things, it’s difficult to detach. But it’s necessary and it’s right. It’s taking the advice of Jesus, who tells us again and again to look beyond this temporary world to the eternal values that really matter. We have to make sure that what we are worrying about is worth worrying about.
What is in our hands, what is in God’s? The key is to admit to both of the natures we possess: human and divine. We are individuals cooperating with each other in community—and with the God within us. We are in a partnership, striking a balance in our reliance on God, on each other, and on self.
Using this partnership approach to anxieties, we may eventually move to a level of trust never known before. We may move to a level of acceptance and surrender preached by St. Vincent de Paul: “My friend, you belong to God. Let this reality color your entire existence. Give yourself up to God ceaselessly with every beat of your heart.”
Take heart. That, in essence, is the final suggestion: Keep giving your worries to God. We can’t just once and for all say, “There, I’ve given my worries to God, and so I’m all set—for life.” We need to give our worries to God repeatedly and consistently and unabashedly. Not a simple feat, by any means. But a lifelong, daily challenge God puts before us and helps us take up.
Excerpt taken from Giving Your Worries to God CareNote. Browse over 300 titles at carenotes.com.
