I was on the train recently, going through the normal process of checking emails, bit of light reading and staring with glazed eyes out of the window as I travelled backwards into London.
‘If you’ve got time to worry you’ve got time to pray.’
A group of Asian students had got in the same carriage as me and were chatting away, in a language completely unknown to me, then suddenly a cool thing happened.
As one of the guys was chatting away, I suddenly heard him say this; ‘if you’ve got time to worry you’ve got time to pray.’ He then carried on chatting and no more English was spoken during the rest of the trip.
I sat for a while thinking about that little phrase, I liked it!
This is perhaps a well-known phrase, but I had actually not heard it before and I think it makes a great point.
Worry is something I think we will all have recognised in our lives at some point or other. Worry can creep up on you unannounced and turn a normal moment into a crisis. Worry can also be sitting in your life like a stone in your shoe that doesn’t actually stop you walking and functioning but is doing enough to let you know it’s there and not going anywhere soon.
The bible counters our natural tendencies to worry by giving us a load of really helpful advice. Things like Philippians 4:6-7
‘Don’t worry about anything, but pray about everything. With thankful hearts offer up your prayers and requests to God. Then, because you belong to Christ Jesus, God will bless you with peace that no one can completely understand. And this peace will control the way you think and feel’.
This doesn’t say ‘just worry about the really big stuff that comes along,’ it says that we don’t need to worry about anything. I find that hard to be honest, there are moments when worry takes over. In finances, in health, in employment or in the occasional very dangerous place I’ve been in and wished I had never gone there.
So there seems to be something of a law at work here. Not an oppressive law, or a law that binds us and limits our lives but one that frees us. As we pray about everything, thanking God for who he is, then because we have a relationship with Jesus we get the law of peace. This law of peace says that it is a peace that no one can really fathom but even in the midst of what should be a worrying place, we’ve got peace.
The law of peace in our lives through prayer because we belong to Jesus. I like that.
Image Credit: Aron Visuals
