Letter from the Rectory - October 2024

Dear Friends,

Are you a worry-er? The writer J. John says it’s been estimated that most people’s anxieties are preoccupied with 40% of things that will never happen, 30% relate to the past that can’t be changed, 12% to other people’s criticism which are generally untrue, and 10% to health which can get worse with stress and negative thinking. Only 8% of the time do they worry about real concerns that will need to be faced. So, if only about 8% of all the issues in our lives really turn out to be ‘something’, why is it that we spend so much time worrying and being highly anxious and stressed about all the rest?
 

There is a story about Arthur Rank. He decided to do all his worrying on one day each week: Wednesdays. When anything happened that gave him anxiety, he’d write it down, put it in his ‘worry box’ and forgot about it until the following week. On the following Wednesday when he opened his worry box, he found that most of the things that had troubled him the past six days were no longer issues of concern: worrying about them had been a waste of time.
 
Of course, there are important things in our lives that we do need to take seriously. However, the danger is that we spend too much time worrying about the inconsequential and then won’t have time to focus on matters of consequence. When we’re over-concerned about the things that we can’t do anything about, it's easy to miss the things which are really important and then we have no time or energy left to deal with them.
 
The question of worry and anxiety raises the issue of our faith and trust in God. Does God know? Does God care? Can we trust God?  In his letter to the Christians in Philippi, the early Church leader Paul said, ‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God; and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.’
 

There was a woman who couldn’t sleep at night because she worried that her home would be burgled. One night, her husband heard a noise in the house, so he went downstairs to investigate. When he got there, he found a burglar. He immediately said, ‘Come upstairs and meet my wife. She’s been waiting to see you for years.’ Worry can not only steal our sleep, but our health and our ability to cope with life productively.

​

James Campbell