The Waste of Worry

In the dark night of our souls, we imagine and worry about the worst possible scenario. In fact, we often conjure up contradictory worst case scenarios to worry about, events that cannot all happen to us. We persuade ourselves that God has abandoned us and that we have no prospects. How much unnecessary turmoil do we put ourselves through! God doesn't promise to give us the grace to survive all the scenarios we can dream up - but only to give us the grace to enable us to make it through whatever he actually brings into our lives. In fact, much of what we worry about turns out in the end not to be part of God's plan for us after all; our worry was wasted work! Of course, Jesus told us this himself when he said, 'Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?' (Matt 6:27).

Iain Duguid from his commentary on Esther and Ruth