Sundown Devotional: God's Rhetorical Question About Worry

MsDora, a former teacher and Christian counselor, presents practical Scriptural principles for joyful everyday living.

The Devotional

Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? Luke 12: 25 NLT

Jesus taught the crowd not to worry over the basic necessities of life—food to eat and clothes to wear. He explained that God provides for the birds, and that He can also provide for humans who are more valuable. So, in the face of God's promise, why worry?

The question applies to us now when we are busy forwarding texts with uncertain facts about the coronavirus, instead of sharing the certain fact that God is in control. While we do have reason to worry, our minds can benefit from more posts about what God can do. We can help each other worry less, since worrying does not help; and pray more, since we need God’s intervention. If we lose to this pandemic mentally, we will be less able to survive physically.

Let’s be intentional about protecting our minds from worry. Let’s keep God's rhetorical question at the back of our minds, and let our actions demonstrate that we know and believe the answer.

• As often as we wash our hands, let’s whisper a prayer for the recovery of someone who is affected.
• To keep from touching our faces, let’s can clasp our hands, and send up a childlike prayer for safety.
• When we disinfect our surfaces, let’s remind ourselves that the Invisible power of strength within us is greater that the invisible virus that’s threatening to kill us.
• Instead of forwarding distressing news from unauthorized sources, let’s hit delete and send a line of encouragement instead.

When fear and doubt come to our minds, let’s repeat God’s rhetorical question about worry; or His question to Abraham: “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Genesis 18:14); or His question to Moses: “Has my arm lost its power?” (Numbers 11:23); or His promise: “You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you! (Isaiah 26:3).

Prayer: Thank You Lord, for being our refuge, strength, and very present help in this time of trouble. Please help us to accept and share Your peace. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Ten Quotes Promoting Prayer Over Worry

1. “The more you pray, the less you'll panic. The more you worship, the less you worry. You'll feel more patient and less pressured.” ―Rick Warren
2. “Pray, hope, and don't worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.” ―Padre Pio
3. “We tend to be preoccupied by our problems when we have a heightened sense of vulnerability and a diminished sense of power. Today, see each problem as an invitation to prayer.” ―John Ortberg
4. “Pray, and let God worry.” ―Martin Luther
5. "Worry is a starting place, but not a staying place. Worry invites me into prayer. As a staying place, worry can be self-indulgent, paralyzing, draining, and controlling. When I take worry into prayer, it doesn't disappear, but it becomes smaller.” ―Sybil MacBeth
6. “Each moment of worry, anxiety or stress represents lack of faith in miracles, for they never cease.” ―T.F. Hodge
7. “God has called His creation to find satisfaction in a personal relationship with Him, and stop trying to manage the world by conforming it to our expectations, and to allow Him to govern His creation. He continues to say through an ancient Hebrew worship song, "Be still and know that I am God!” ―Swindoll Charles R.
8. “Worrying is not an act of God; it's failing to act in the faith of His plan.” ―Farshad Asl
9. “Don't worry. You don't know enough to worry. That's God's truth. Who do you think you are that you should worry, for crying out loud? It's a total waste of time. It presupposes such a knowledge of the situation that it is in fact a form of hubris.” ―Terence McKenna
10. “Nothing conquers the chaos around me like the calm assurance that I am at peace with God.” ―Ron Brackin

More Sundown Devotionals

• Sundown Devotional: Serving God With Our Influence
  We do not know her name. All we know is that she was a captured Israelite, serving as a maid. Yet, even as we wonder about her identity, we see her great influence over those with outstanding identity.
• Sundown Devotional: God Provides According to His Riches
  When our children ask for more help than we can afford, we may forget that our needs are met from God's supply which is available to us. The poem and promises remind us that God has more than enough.
• Sundown Devotional: The Virus Resembling the Wind
  COVID-19 reminds us of the wind in Peter's story. Trying to escape the threat of death on the sea of Galilee, he encountered heavy waves which made him panic, but the real danger was in the wind.

© 2013 Dora Weithers