Stressed? Good. It means you care about something.
But here’s the challenge: is what you care about important? If it is, it’s a good stress. If not, it’s not.
Here’s a little suggestion on how to think through that…
Get a sheet of lined paper. Write at the top, “Everything That Bothers Me”.
Draw 3 columns down the right of the sheet.
Now write everything that bothers you. One bother per line.
Go on. Do it, then read the rest of this.
Got that list? Ok, let’s get to the next steps.
Above the first 2 columns (the left most ones) write “Can I do anything about this?” In the first column write “Yes” and the next one, “No”.
In the 3rd and final column, write “This will matter in Heaven.” The top of your sheet should end up looking something like this…
Now go through your list ticking off “Yes” or “No” to note if it is something you can do anything about.
Matthew 5:33-34
Any bother you tick off as “No”, cross it off the list. Am I advocating denial? No. After all, you just acknowledged it. But that’s all the time and energy you should spend on it. You’re human, you’re finite. You only have so much time and energy. Every moment you spend being bothered about something you can’t do anything about is lost from something you can do something about.
Cross off the No’s and move onto fixing the Yes’s.
Congratulations! You now have a shorter list of bothers you can do something about. The next step is to tackle the ones that ultimately matter. They are the ones you tick “This will matter in Heaven”. The ones that score this tick float to the top in terms of importance.
Do the other’s not matter? No, of course not. Bills still need to be paid, health still needs to be attended to etc. but having this point in mind puts them in perspective in terms of priority and concern. And let’s not forget where your ultimate help comes from and it isn’t from worrying.
Life is stressful. Since life is going to hand us stress, let’s make it useful.
