I wonder why I worry so much. Some days it seems to be all I do. I get up, I go to work and then I worry about work. Then I get worried because I am worrying so much about work which makes me even more worried because of the level of worry in my life is getting worrying and... oh... get a grip!

Obviously I do not spend all my days in worry but sometimes I make a good go of it. And it's not just about work either. Many mornings I walk to the end of my street, turn around and walk home again because I have started worrying that I didn't shut the front door properly. (This is also a testament to my ability to become entirely distracted when I should be concentrating on closing the door - and, yes, the door has always been closed and locked properly.)

I manage to worry about things over which I have absolutely no control; what the weather will be like on a day out with friends, whether the All Blacks will win the World Cup. Yet I have about as much chance of increasing the hours of sunlight as I do of scoring the game winning try in the World Cup final.

Worry, worry, worry, worry, worry.

I even manage to worry about things that I absolutely know for sure I need not worry about. Travelling through Asia I have stood in the queue for customs worrying that I may have inadvertently bought a block of heroin and packed it into my bags. Nevermind that I wouldn't know where one buys such a thing, or even what it would look like. I have actually had moments of worry about that. (Then I get worried that because I probably look so worried they will pull me aside and tear apart my luggage looking for the block of heroin that I did not buy and pack in my bags. Frankly, its only by grace that I haven't had to spend at least 6 or 7 hours in some airport detention centre proving my innocence.)

The most ridiculous thing is that most of the time the things I worry about never happen in the way I worry about them. The door is locked. The problem at work is solved. I don't find myself arrested for drug smuggling. I probably couldn't remember 99% of the things I worried about last year, no matter how big a problem they seemed at the time, because one way or another the situation resolved itself and, apparently, I survived. Even when the things you worry about do happen, it's very rare that you can't cope. The All Blacks lost the last World Cup, and the one before that. And the one before that. But life goes on and now, four years later, they have another chance for the title (please God).

Worry, you see, is an exceedingly pointless activity. It solves nothing. It accomplishes nothing. Worry rarely gives birth to inspiration or wisdom. All it seems to do is make me more stressed. Jesus (who - not having a home, regular paid employment and knew he would one day have to sacrifice his life - had more cause to worry than most) was on to a thing or two about worry. "Who of you" he asked "can add a single hour to your life by worry?" Well, certainly not me.

Worry is almost the opposite of prayer, which should be my response to problems. It's not just that worry is completely ineffective whereas I've know prayer to be very effective. It's also because when I pray I am telling God I trust Him with my problems but if I spend all my time worrying I suggest the my problems are too big for God. More than that, when I worry I can end up putting that worry or concern ahead of God, spending my time focusing on the worry and giving it too much brain space. Yet
surely the things I worry about are nothing compared to the reality of God in my life.

Jesus says we need not worry but instead should "seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you as well". We should not worry because God should be so much more important to us. We need not worry because God can be trusted to look after us.

So recently I have been trying not to worry so much. I've been praying about things more (including about not worrying) and also taking a breath and putting the worry aside, refusing it any brain space. Today I managed to remain remarkably unworried at work and you know, even though it was a very busy day and a lot of things didn't go how I would have wished, it felt like a good day. Which is good. That's one less thing to worry about.

"So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteouness, and all these things will be added to you as well."
Matthew 6:31-33