Don't Worry.....Be Happy?

My husband, Frank, loves roller coasters.  I mean....he LOVES them.  Me, not so much. I honestly don't even like those IMAX rides where you FEEL like you are riding the ride.....but Frank loves them.....so every now and then I will ride one with him.  As we sit in our seat my mind is a buzz as I wonder if I was going to be able to endure the ride, especially knowing my propensity for motion sickness and vertigo. Our last big attempt was the Harry Potter ride in Orlando.  He was thrilled....I was going to ride a ride with him.....he could hardly contain his excitement.....me....not so much.  Before entering the point of no return I asked the girl at the entrance if it flipped and jerked  you around....."Oh no" she said.....it is safe enough for little children......So we began the process of working through the line to the ride.  I was uneasy.....but walking through the school was pretty cool.....we got in our seats....and they strapped us in.....The guide  gave last minute instructions. I need to tell you....I had on flip flops.  When the ride was over....my toes were cramped.  The seats began to lift....and the bottom of them dropped away (hence why I had toe cramps) and the ride began to move....faster....faster....throwing me forward....and then pulling me backward.....I began to worry about my shoes coming off...I began to worry about the cable snapping and me falling....I worried I would never see Frank again....I worried about everything and really had myself worked up.  The other thing I remember doing....was screaming....so loud, so much, in other languages even.....I closed my eyes and waited for the nightmare to pass.  When we finally reached the end of our journey, I unclenched my toes, found Frank and we left.  Would I ride it again?  Not in a million years.  Was I angry....yes...this one ride was worth a year of chick flick attendance.  It wasn’t real. Yes, I did get a bit queasy from the larger-than-life broom riding movement in a Quidditch game,  dodging a fire breathing dragons, avoiding random shots from a magic want....I was never in real danger....but in my worried mind....danger loomed everywhere.  Rationally I knew it wasn’t true. Rationally I knew it was all a series of effects.  It was like a movie. I would walk out when it was over....none the worse for wear.  That is the peace of walking, or in this case sitting, in the truth. Every day Satan stalks us like a lion and seeks to trip us up by stirring up worry about the future. I bombed this......I fell right in and let the devil have his way with my mind....and my peace.  He robbed me.  I KNEW it was not real. I knew it!  To quote the Temptations song, "It was just my imagination....running away with me.  So what do you do?  I closed my eyes and stopped looking at the screen...the imaginings in your mind.  Yes, I was still jerked around....but I saw nothing....and it you can't see it....you can worry about it!  If you can.....leave the theater...the cinema where the worriers in you heart loop round and round.  Here is the biggie....Trust in God...the only One who knows what the future holds. He’s got this.  One of my dad's favorite hymns was called "I Know Who Holds Tomorrow..."  When I do finally turn it over to God....and quit worrying I find I am so much happier.....I also stay off rides.  That way I am not tempted to worry.  Matthew 6:25-34 tells us:  “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?   “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  Before I leave you all today I want you to think about five things you worried about in 2015.  Now, ask yourself.....What good did the worrying do? What did it change?  Then ask yourself....How much of what you worried about happening actually happened?   My mom used to say, “Worry is a down payment on a problem you may never have.”  So my plan for 2016 is just not to do it.