Our Daily Bread

Worry is the pre-occupation that I may not get what I want or I may lose what I have. 

What we are saying is that this thing is so important to me that instead of accepting what God has allowed, that He is my source, that he controls everything, and that if it does or does not happen, it is going to be okay; instead of accepting those realities….we worry.

Those are the times in life when we allow something other than God to be our center.

I have been reading a book by Dale Carnegie, "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living".

Of course you know if I am reading that book, then I must have a problem with worrying. I would say I am an honor graduate in that area. I am married to a logger where the weather affects everything. It could be dry in the woods but that means the mills get filled and you get shut out. If you get a lot of rain, the mills are offering great prices for the wood but it is too wet to haul them. I have just started out in my mediation business and have had only one mediation at my office in 3 months. I got a call from my ob-gyn office that my pap came back abnormal and I need to go in for another test.

So, I needed this book!

One of the first things he reminds us of is the Lord's Prayer. "Give us this day our daily bread." The prayer tells us to only ask for today's bread. It does not say complain about yesterday or tell us to be concerned about tomorrow's bread.

Three steps he suggested to apply to stop worrying are:

1.      Analyze the situation fearlessly and honestly and figure out what the worst that could possibly happen as a result of this failure. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

2.      After figuring out what was the worst that could possibly happen, reconcile myself to accepting it.

3.      From that time on, calmly devote my time and energy to trying to improve upon the worst which I had already accepted mentally.

This is the day which the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.