Alright, here I am! Still alive after week 1 here at BYU, believe it or not. Tired and exhausted, but breathing.
Breathing heavily, but breathing.
Wait, out of breath……
…..
………..
*Hmmph* Okay, caught my breath.
Nah, it’s not that bad. In all honesty, I’m ecstatic to be this busy again! There is always a reluctance to completely fill every day of the week with work and school and responsibility, but once you’re in the thick of it, it’s quite fulfilling. I found that out this week – even though most spare moments between classes are spent doing homework, practicing or reading, those moments are often the most peaceful and enjoyable. It’s nice to have little rewards like that amidst a heavy workload. Find joy in the small things!
I’ll have to be quick today. I spent the entire weekend down in St. George and Mesquite at a team camp for the BYU Frisbee team. Such a great experience!!! I was also able to spend time with the one and only Chris Cannon, a ZL companion from my mission. All in all, it was a wonderful weekend.
But I got back late Sunday afternoon, so now I’m scrambling to fit this article in before something else happens!
Let’s begin. Today, I would like to talk about worry. For those of you who have seen the Disney movie Oliver and Company, you’ll recognize the title of the article as being the name of the song sung by the dog – the Billy Joel classic “Why Should I worry?”
It’s a great song, you should listen to it.
By clicking on the dog. (Anyone remember his name?)
Anyways, the song makes a bit of a good point. Why worry? Why should we worry? Most of us, if not all of us, don’t like worry. It causes anxiety, which leads to discomfort, stress, and even sickness. Yet, like stress, worry can have a positive effect in some ways. It’s definitely around for a reason.
It’s my worry about failing school that motivates me to do homework.
It’s my worry of messing up in a performance that motivates me to practice my dancing or drumming.
And, maybe most importantly, it’s my worry about that cute girl in math class (doesn’t have to be math class, it can be any class) that motivates me to brush my teeth and wake up early to shower each day.
(Don’t worry, that’s not the only reason I brush my teeth and shower every day. It’s just a very prominent reason.)
On the flip side, worry causes us problems, as hinted at before. It can discourage us from doing things. It has been the reason I have missed a lot of opportunities in my life. It, like fear, can serve as a façade, that “imaginary wall” that prevents us from moving ahead in our lives.
Yes, worry is often justified. We have valid reason to worry about certain things. It is natural and part of being human. It’s part of our chemical makeup. It’s a defense mechanism. But just like anger – which also happens to have all of these qualities just mentioned – it must be controlled.
My analysis has caused me to believe that worry comes from a lack of hope. It comes because of an underlying lack of confidence in the outcome of a given situation. While faith leads to hope, doubt leads to worry. Worry is the final destination for those who lead a life of sin – as the Book of Mormon says, this “despair cometh because of iniquity” (Moroni 10:22).
Let me use an example in my life to illustrate this principle, in a way that is a bit less dramatic than eternal despair. Let me start by saying I am a big worrier. I justify myself by saying I get it from my Dad, who will openly admit he tends to worry a lot. (I don’t think that’s a bad thing; it’s a safe thing really). Thus, on the frisbee field, I worry about outcomes a lot. There is a certain direction of throw you can make that is called an “around”. In essence, when you have the frisbee you will have a defender guarding you that will either force you to throw right (by standing on the left side of you) or left (by standing on the right side of you). This helps for a number of reasons that I won’t get into now. An “around” means you “break the mark” by throwing the disc around your defender to the side of the field that he did not want you to throw to.
Make sense?
It’s a really tough throw to make, one that requires lots of speed and typically a very deep lunge around your defender. But harder than these physical requirements are the mental ones. If your defender hits the disc down immediately after you throw it, it’s called a “hand block” and you are humiliated for the rest of your life – at least that’s how I see it. It really, really sucks. And hand blocks happen often on around throws. So naturally, one would worry about getting hand blocked, which would thus paralyze them from making that throw. That is a form of worry that must be overcome, because more often than not, you will NOT be blocked on that throw. Mentally you believe you will, but in actuality you won’t be.
So how does this apply? You could say my hope is that I can get the disc around my defender to my teammate. My worry is that it won’t work. If I allow my worry to swallow my hope, I won’t throw that disc. My hope – and thus my confidence and faith in my ability – must outweigh the worry in my mind. Is this not true in every aspect of our lives? When worry wins, yes, we don’t fail, but we also don’t succeed – nothing is done. Is it not better to risk a bit and get the possible, typically plausible success? Who cares if we fail? Let our “sacrifice be greater than our increase”, remember?
And let me add a greater perspective. Worry focuses on a negative outcome and makes that your immediate belief. It is an adversarial tactic to focus on specific outcomes rather than general assurances. If, for example, I am taking a test for my calculus class, my worry would be that I fail the test. It’s a valid worry for a college level math class. My hope could then be in passing the test. If that hope is strong enough for me, then my faith will motivate me to act by studying and preparing and praying.
BUT THEN, what if I fail the test?
Do I blame God and claim my worry was true and my hope was false?
The correct answer is...
No!
Hope in an outcome is not strong enough to overcome worry about an outcome. We must have hope in CHRIST, as is stated in the Book of Mormon (Moro. 7:41) in order to truly defeat our worries. You see, if my worry is failing the test, I still will do all I can to not fail the test, but if I do fail then I still know Jesus is the Christ, and thus things on an eternal field will all be okay.
Let’s get a bit more extreme. If your parent or grandparent is suddenly permitted into the hospital for a sudden illness, your worry will be that they won’t make it through the night. If your only hope is that they make it through the night, you will STILL have worry. BUT, if your hope is that because Christ lives and God is good, whatever the outcome is, all will be well, then your worry will vanish!
It’ll disappear!
Well, in theory it will. However, because our hope in Christ is not perfect yet, the worry will still persist. But in the long run, if we maintain hope in Christ, our worries will have no long-term hold on us. Things will work out as they should, and we’ll be happy when all is said and done.
I hope this has made some sense and can be applied to your life.
Now let me end with a lyric to a song I listened to on the way home from St. George today. It’s called “Unbelief” by Nashville Tribute Band, an incredible country band that writes songs about church history and scripture. This one is based on the man in the New Testament who pleads with Christ to “help with [his] unbelief”. The song says:
“I could say I know, I could say I believe
Right now, these doubts, are all I’m feeling
I love my God, but it’s faith that I need
Please Lord, may you, help thou mine unbelief.”
When worries surround us seemingly on all sides, let us remember that “all things work together for good to them that love God” (Romans 8:28). If that is our consistent hope – not a hope in outcomes, but a hope in Christ – then we will have a bit more power over worry than we now have.
Love you all heaps!
Adam Simpson
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