What Worry Costs Us

A story is told of a man who was walking toward a city one morning when he saw Death walking in the same direction. The man stopped Death and said, “Where are you going?”

“I’m going into that city to take one hundred people,” Death replied.

“That is horrible,” the man said.

“It’s what I do.”

So the man ran to the city ahead of Death and warned everyone he could. When evening fell, he saw Death walking away from the city. The man ran up and said, “I thought you were going to take only one hundred people. Why did one thousand die?”

“I kept my word,” said Death. “I took only one hundred people. Worry took the rest.”

That’s how life can be. Worry can get us. Studies have shown that 75 to 90 percent of all visits to primary care physicians are stress-related complaints or disorders. Yet most of what we worry about never actually happens. In a survey on worry, Dr. Walter Calvert reported that only eight percent of the things people worried about were legitimate matters of concern. The other ninety-two percent were either imaginary or never happened.

The word worry is derived from an Old English word that means, “to choke.” That’s what worry does: it chokes us.

The Bible says, “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:6–7). The idea of casting is throwing something. It would be like carrying extra luggage, and a friend says to you, “Hey, let me take that load.”

“Gladly,” you say. “Thank you!”

That’s what Peter was saying here. Take your worries and throw them upon Christ, because He cares for you.