Nothing to worry about!

This is the door of a church I have passed most mornings on my morning walk and a few times later in the day. As of this morning, I have not yet opened that door, which I am sure will not be locked, and ventured inside.

I did enter a little chapel in the last place I visited and came out full of questions about why I had gone into it in the first place. It left me a bit cold because it was small and yet very ornate. A bank of what looked like little tea candles. Some flickering with light other still waiting for the coin to drop and be lit for the allotted time paid for. It all seemed so far away from a man gathering a group of followers by the shores of the sea of Galilee. 

I have spent some time in the company of fellow Scots living on the same site as I am just now. They are fairly committed to their church and so the conversation on more than one evening has come around to my time as a minister. The question of my ever returning to the ministry is no longer an issue yet there are those who feel I should even at my age.

So when I sat and painted this church door many thoughts crossed my mind. The most vivid was that of a large knapsack laying by the pillar at the side of the door.

I spent many years inviting people to come through such door and bring their burdens with them. I saw my job as to help they lay their burdens down. Sadly many left them at the door and collected them on the way out and took the worries of life, and I had made little if any difference to their thinking.

Worry is fear's extravagance. It extracts interest on trouble before it comes due. 

It constantly drains the energy of life and hampers our ability to face daily problems and to fulfil our true potential. One of my meagre success stories was a woman who had lived long enough to have learned some important truths about life but she said I had helped her to understand something very important. 

She one day said to me, "I've had a lot of trouble, most of which never happened!" 

She had worried about many things that had never occurred, and had come to see the total futility of her anxieties.

More and more we hear talk of young people living with stress and worry, it seems rampant. Maybe it is a symptom of our overly advanced civilisation or our loss of any spiritual meaning in life? Whatever the cause there is one certainty worry never does anybody any good.

I learned a long time ago that to say, "Do not think about it,"  is a useful as a placebo. 

What I have learned is this. if we constantly see the world with all its problems it is far too much for any one person to address. You and I can only exercise our compassion to those around us, offering whatever help we can. Having done so we can do no more. 

But if each of us acted in this way whenever we could the worries of the world would be reduced even if only in a small way. But each of us will feel better because we will know that we have acted.

Have a carefree day.