A Child Of God And Worry

A child of God, conscious of his or her place (his, in this case) in God, should not be worried to the point of having a sore stomach. He should not be worried to the point of a possibility of future ulcers.

I have so much worry tonight that it's not funny. And it's not welcome. I'm trying now to mentally/spiritually get rid of it. I told someone and she said, "I hope it works for you." I do too. I can't see why it wouldn't. I have the confidence to believe, the faith to believe that it will.

Part of it is viewing your life from a perspective different from just this [indicating my face and body] realm. There I picture the external me wandering through the world, beset on all sides by various dangers and challenges. At that point I am ego bound and bound to feel that wasting away feeling. Because the external me is facing the external it and there's no oneness; we are in a hostile opposition.

So in viewing your life differently from that, you want to see everything (and be convinced of) a more wholistic truth about it. That you aren't a separate thing in a separating environment. You are one with it all, the perceptions you have are mental and intrinsic (no division in those two terms). What is is and you are like an event in this realm of being. With God at the heart of it and me.

The burdens I allow myself to bear are rooted in my momentary ignorance and perceived separation. So it's a matter of worrying about the future. Instead of just being rooted in God right now and letting those other moments come when they come. Jesus says not to worry about tomorrow, that today has enough evil to contend with. By worrying about the future I'm trying to contend with all the evil in advance, of which most of it will turn out to have been imaginary anyway.

But what if I can't help it? That's the condition I'm in, or at least I was in before I started this post, which is a matter of spurring me to a greater psychic discipline, to overcome the feeling of dread I've had all day. If my life is in flux, so be it. It's bound to be. There's no security anyway in the sense of making everything perpetually OK.

I was thinking of something I read by Alan Watts one time about security and insecurity. In fact I was trying to explain it to someone today, and I might've put my own spin on it because I don't remember Watts' whole thing -- I never actually got the book fully read, like most books. The sense of security is false. The sense of insecurity leads to creativity and greater potential outcomes.

My feeling is one of wanting security and wanting to cling to it. So when things are in flux -- with many challenges lying ahead -- I want to shut down. Not eat, etc. That's no good. It doesn't help that last night I couldn't get to sleep until much later than my bedtime. I'm usually so dependable about falling asleep, but with these things hanging over my head -- which must be unspecified -- I was keyed up.

I will be done with this in a couple of minutes. Then I will get my Bible and start meditating upon some truths. Then some quiet, not clamoring prayer. Not even necessarily with words. But a sort of longing, welcoming silence. I hope with enough of that, something between five and 20 minutes, that I'll get my appetite back. I know I must be hungry, if I didn't have this terrible knot in my gut.

A child of God is denying himself his full place in God's care and provision by maintaining distance and a state of worry. Anything I'm facing can be left in God's hands. "Cast your burdens upon God, for God cares for you."

It's all true. Even if you can't fathom a big character up in the sky somewhere sitting on a throne, the germ of the thing is reality. "Cast your burdens upon God..." etc.

This child of God is about to overcome. Step aside, worry.