How to Be Worry-Free in Times Like These

It was 11:58 p.m. on December 31, 1999.

Most people I knew were just minutes away from “partying like it was 1999.” It was New Year’s Eve, baby. And it was a big one.

Meanwhile, I sat at my work desk on full alert, eyes glued to my computer screen. I sat in a newsroom full of other reporters, waiting to see whether our world would collapse under a predicted technological catastrophe.

Do you remember that year? It was the year of the “Y2K bug.” Many people believed that when the calendar switched from 1999 to 2000, computers all over the world would glitch out. Doomsdayers warned that this glitch might just end civilization as we know it. Grocery stores couldn’t keep bottled water and canned goods in stock. Companies were investing thousands of dollars in preparation for the Y2K bug.

So we reporters were called in to wait, watch, and then report.

While I sat at my desk, the clock struck midnight. And???

Nothing happened.

My lede on the next morning’s news story was this: “Bathed in uninterrupted heat and light at 12:01 a.m., we abandoned our Y2K fears faster than a New Year’s resolution.”

So much of what millions of people worried about . . . never came to pass.

I hadn’t thought about that moment for a really long time — until last night. Why? Because it reminded me of the unproductive nature of worry. I needed that reminder this week, because I have been such a worrier lately.

We have a LOT to worry about, right? The instability of our world. The uncertainty of the economy. A presidential election that has so many people in knots.

And most of you have your own personal stuff that won’t make the news headlines — yet it’s the stuff that keeps you awake at night anyway.

Maybe we all have a good reason to worry. And look, I get it: it’s definitely possible that one’s worst fears will come true. I have had some of my deepest fears unfold into reality.

But it’s just as true that our worst fears will never come to pass — kind of like the Y2K catastrophe that wasn’t.

Worrying about what might happen tomorrow, does little more than to distract us from what God is doing today.

In the end, this truth remains: We can’t fix outcomes, but we can fix our minds on Christ.

God must have known we’d face times like these, because He gave us words of hope, on nearly every page of Scripture, to keep us grounded when things got out of hand. He’s a master of offering hope.

Today, let’s keep grounded. Let’s listen to the Master of Hope.

My challenge for all of us today is this:

Today, let’s do this. Let’s join together as a community of (in)courage believers and re-read the promises given to us in Romans 8:28-39. In those verses, Paul reminds us that we are more than conquerors, no matter what we face.

Paul asks us an important question: What can separate you from God’s love?

Is it death? Our past mistakes? Some raging addiction? A worldwide catastrophe? An election?

The answer, of course, is nothing. Nothing can separate you from Christ’s love.

N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

No matter what happens tomorrow, or next week, or next year, or the next time all the news reporters in all the world gather in their newsrooms waiting for the next predicted catastrophe. We are still held in the palm of Christ’s forever love.

You don’t have to worry anymore. Why?

Because of Jesus. That’s why. He’s got this. And He’s got you.

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing — nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable — absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. {Romans 8:37-39}

YOUR TURN: Read Romans 8:28-39 today. Reading these words, what gives you hope in times like these?