How to Worry Less and Enjoy Life More
I’ve always been a planner and a worrier. However, I’ve been learning how to worry less and enjoy life more.
Perhaps you can relate.
Maybe you want to stop stressing out and savor your life, but you don’t know how to stop your mind from spiraling into worries.
Today, I’ll share an insight that has helped me shift from worry to peace, and I’ll also share a list of practical ways to worry less and enjoy life more.
How to Worry Less and Enjoy Life More
My journey into this way of thinking began as I stood under a pale crescent moon and took a hard look at my life.
I’d been planning and trying to create the perfect outcomes in my life for months. Our family was making plans to add a third child to our family, and I also had big dreams about writing books. I’d become obsessed with the timing regarding books and babies.
As I stood beneath the slender moon, my prayer went something like this: “Lord, you know I’ve been trying to stay in control and bring these two dreams to pass in my own strength. Tonight, I surrender my future to you. Help me to be a good steward of the assignments you place in front of you and leave the outcomes in your trustworthy hands.”
My prayer wasn’t a negation of responsibility or effort.
It was simply a cessation of striving.
I’ve always been drawn to the familiar words of Psalm 46:10, which read, “Cease from striving and know that I am God.”
Some translations read, “Be still and know that I am God.”
For years I assumed that the words, “be still,” meant to stop moving and focus on God.
What I didn’t know was that in the original language, the word for, “be still,” loosely translates as, “let your arms hang loose or slackened.”
A more literal translation is, “Let your hard-working arms hang limp and loose. Lay it down.”
Be Still and Let God Be God in Your Life
I thought of those words as I stood in the moon’s shadow and considered how I might worry less.
And in the milky glow, I let my arms hang loose. I laid down all of my careful plans and all my striving to bring the plans to pass.
It was terrifying.
As the weeks wore on, God began unfolding a very different plan. It wasn’t the plan I would have orchestrated. It was riskier, less cautious, and less “perfectly timed.”
However, as God’s plans became my reality, the most surprising emotion swept over me: I sensed God’s pleasure in a more tangible way than I’d ever sensed it in my life.
I also felt the most surprising sense of safety.
Steward the Assignment and Remember That God Has You
In the months after my surrender beneath the moon, I knew Jesus had me. I knew that no matter how his plan unfolded, his arms were around me.
I knew that if I fell, underneath were the everlasting arms. God was protecting me and holding me, and I had never felt a greater sense of security.
I wonder if you can relate.
Maybe you’ve been calculating and measuring and trying to figure out how your future will fit together, and it’s making your head spin.
Perhaps this planning involves your job or your family or that move across the country.
Maybe you’re trying to figure out how to create a schedule with a newborn who never sleeps.
Perhaps life feels out of control, but you just can’t see letting your arms hang loose, because letting go feels terrifying. Most likely, your worries consume you at times. You want to worry less and have more joy, but you’re not sure how to make the shift.
Let Jesus Carry Your Heavy Burdens
Dear friend, Jesus wants to carry your worries and heavy burdens for you.
Will you lift your burdens to him?
Will you ask him to help you grow in trust as you surrender to him?
God often calls us to take the first step of obedience before filling us with the peace that surpasses understanding.
God often calls us to take the first step of obedience before filling us with the peace that surpasses understanding. #GodsPeace #Obedience #Surrender Click To TweetPeace is waiting for you. Wherever God calls you to release your plans to him, you can trust that you are secure in his embrace through each step of the journey ahead.
7 Practical Ways to Worry Less and Enjoy Life:
Let’s review what we’ve learned in this post and add a few more ideas for ways to worry less and enjoy life more.
1. Be still and let God be God in your life.
2. Steward God’s assignments and trust him with the results.
3. Lift your heavy burdens to Jesus.
4. Every time the worries return, imagine lifting them to Jesus. Ask him to carry them for you.
5. Let worry become a prompt to fix your eyes on Jesus.
6. Worship God instead of worrying.
7. Give thanks for God’s gifts when you feel tempted to worry.
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Calling All Moms and Daughters!
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