DESTROYING The Worry Tree

The vigor and tenacity of life in a tree, is determined largely by the soil in which it grows. 

I lived for many years in a state where the soil is fertile, the ground level, and where beech trees were very numerous. 

I had occasion to belt many of them, and observed that they were very easily killed.

Before that, I had lived in another state where the soil is clay and the country very hilly. 

Here the beech trees were very hard to kill.

I remember a neighbor's attempt at killing a tree that stood by the roadside. 

Not only did he belt it...but his boys climbed the tree and cut off the branches a little distance from the trunk. 

These were then piled around the tree and burned. I wondered why they were taking such radical steps to kill the tree. 

The next spring I learned the reason.

In spite of all of this treatment, the stubs of the branches which had been cut off, grew out new twigs and leafed out. 

New shoots sprouted up. 

With all their labor, they had not accomplished their purpose. 

The difference was not in the climate - it must have been in the soil.

We have already pointed out that the worry tree grows in the soil of doubt. 

We can hold an attitude of doubt, which is favorable to worry and fear. 

On the other hand we can hold an attitude of faith, which is altogether unfavorable toward these things. 

In order to destroy the worry tree, we should change the soil around its roots. 

We cannot uproot it and destroy it by an act of our will. 

We can take away its favorable soil. 

We can develop faith. 

We can believe in God. 

We can turn our eyes away from our worries and our troubles and look upon God. 

We can cease to fertilize the worry tree. 

We can cease to rob ourselves of our heritage of victory willed to us by our heavenly Father.

We can have that rest of soul which God has promised us. 

We can find it only in him. 

But as long as we permit all our time to be occupied with giving attention to our worries...we shall have no time to give to the cultivation of those graces which God would freely develop in us to give us happiness and contentment. 

We so often cultivate doubts instead of cultivating faith. 

It is important that we learn how we are doing this, and then adopt a different course. 

We can all have faith if we will go about it right and faith is the victory that overcomes all of our troubles.

One of the best ways to get rid of worries, is to ignore the doubts upon which they are founded. 

Troubles let alone, have a way of curing themselves. 

As long as we fill our brain with worry we will increase our trouble. 

The less we think about our troubles the smaller they become. 

The more we think about them the more rapidly they grow, and the less capable we are of overcoming them or meeting them successfully.

The surest way to get rid of the worry tree is to cut it down with the ax of faith. 

There is no worry or fear in trust. 

I repeat this thought over and over...that it may sink deep into your heart and mind. 

When you worry then you do not trust. 

When you trust then you do not worry. 

You cannot do both these at one time.

Permit me to suggest a way to develop your faith. 

Take your Bible and some paper. Write out a list of promises which meet your need. 

Read these promises over every day. Read them until they become real to you. 

Whenever you catch yourself worrying or fearing then get those promises and read them. 

Say after you read each one, "This is true and it means me." Say this over and over until you come to believe it.

Perhaps at first your words will mock you. Perhaps the promises will seem to mock you. I have had the experience. I know how it feels. 

I know also from personal experience, that we can keep right at it, reading these promises, asserting that they are true, asserting that they mean us...until in our own consciousness they do come to mean us.  

They come to soothe and comfort us. They neutralize our fears. 

Little by little we come to trust in them and as we trust, we cease to worry. 

Our fears grow less. We come into a restful attitude. 

There is a sure cure for all of our worries, if we take it. 

That cure is an attitude of simple trust in God and his promises. 

Worry is a mental habit. 

Children are not prone to worry, or if they do, it is only momentarily. 

There is a natural flexibility to the human mind that throws off worry, until we rob it of its flexibility by cultivating the habit of worrying. 

Any bad habit can be broken so the worry habit can be broken. 

If you are troubled with worry, start in to break yourself of it, just as you would break yourself of any other improper or hurtful habit. 

Worrying is an extremely hurtful habit. 

It is an abnormal mental state possible of correction and we owe it to ourselves to correct it.

We cannot help thoughts coming into our minds...but it is within our power to direct our thoughts. 

We can reject unwelcome thoughts. 

We can compel ourselves to quit thinking, what we do not wish to think. 

We can supplant improper thoughts with bright, cheerful thoughts.

From a long experience of suffering, being confined to my bed, with nothing to do, being in fact unable to do anything, and having sunk to the depths of discouragement and black despair...I finally learned to supplant my dark thoughts with bright ones. 

I found that I must keep my thoughts off of myself...

So I deliberately turned my thoughts into other persons and ideas. 

Of course, the old gloomy thoughts reasserted themselves but as often as they came back, I supplanted them with something else, and finally broke myself completely of the habit of worrying and of thinking depressing thoughts.

One thing very needful, is the will not to worry.

Suggestion has a profound effect upon us. 

Our thoughts have this power of suggestion. 

We can suggest negative ideas to our minds or we can suggest positive ideas. 

We can suggest discouragement or we can suggest encouragement. 

We can make our minds run in the channel in which we choose for them to run. 

Positive suggestion is the basis of a happy and successful life. Make your thoughts help you rather than hinder you.

One trouble with many people is that they are always resisting something. 

They are always on the defensive. 

This attitude of resistance toward our circumstances and surroundings, places us under a continuous strain. 

One writer has said, "Most nervous patients are in a constant state of muscular contraction; but a large percentage of the things that harass and vex them, causing them nervous tenseness, would cease to torture them if they would simply stop resisting. 

It is our perpetual resistance to annoying trifles which gives them power to annoy us."

I do not advocate surrender to circumstances. 

What we need is to adjust ourselves to them. 

This constant revolt against circumstances so common in many people, takes the joy out of their lives. 

It keeps them under a perpetual strain. 

It uses up their energy to no purpose.

Do not use up your energy resisting circumstances. 

Displace the undesirable by something else, if that is possible. If not, adjust yourself to it...make the best of it. 

Let us use as great intelligence in these matters, as we do in others. When I am cold I do not resist the cold...I seek warmth. 

When I am hungry I do not resist hunger...I seek food. 

When I am weary...I rest. 

When I am anxious or worried...I turn to faith and trust. 

The psalmist said, "What time I am afraid I will trust in you." 

He had learned the secret of overcoming trouble.

The word worry is not in the Bible. 

You may look for it from cover to cover. You will not find it. 

As God did not think it necessary to use the word worry in the Bible, or have it used there...just so it need not be in the Christian life. 

To be sure the equivalent to worry is in the Bible. We find fear, trouble, and words of like nature but we are commanded not to be afraid, not to be troubled.

Many people are like those of whom the psalmist speaks. They are "in great fear where there was nothing to fear" (Psalm 53:5). 

Most of our troubles are imaginary, or if there is real trouble then we add much to it through our imagination and fear. 

Some people are so afraid of trouble, that they are never at rest. 

They are frightened at nothing; even as it is written, "The sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them!" (Leviticus 26:36)

Listen to this promise: "Whoever hearkens unto me, shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil" (Proverbs 1:33). 

He would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear . . . all the days of our life (Luke 1:74, 75).

The experience of the psalmist may be our experience if we will do as he did: "I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears" (Psalm 34:4). 

We shall also do well to hold an attitude like that of the psalmist: "The Lord is my light and my salvation whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life of whom shall I be afraid?" (Psalm 27:1). 

The result of holding that attitude is stated in verse three, "Though an army should encamp against me my heart shall not fear; though war should rise against me in this will I be confident. 

Read also Psalm 46:1, 2, "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth gives way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging." 

Again, "In God I have put my trust I will not fear what flesh can do unto me" (Psalm 56:4). The exhortation of Christ is, "Be not anxious" (Matthew 6:25). 

Read also verses 31, 34; Luke 12:25, 26. Jesus said, "Let not your heart be troubled" (John 14:1). 

What reason does he give that we should not be troubled? 

He continues, "You believe in God." To him, that was sufficient reason for not worrying. It ought to be sufficient reason to us. 

In verse 27 he says, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you…. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

Now, for a concluding thought which we shall do well to keep fresh in our minds. When we trust in and obey God then whatever comes to us must come in his will. 

It cannot come without his knowledge. 

His watchful care is ever over us. He will always keep us, no matter how many troubles come. 

Therefore if we abide in him and his Word abides in us then we shall never have cause to worry. 

We are safe and secure, no matter how threatening future or present troubles may be. 

So cut down your worry tree with the ax of faith and rest in full assurance of faith in the righteousness and love of God.

~Charles Naylor~