"Wait to Worry"

This from today's Harvard Business Review Daily Stat:

APRIL 18, 2012 A Person's Mental Health Gradually Improves in the Weeks After a Layoff The mental health of people who are unemployed takes a hit at first but gradually improves over 10 to 12 weeks, according to a team led by Connie R. Wanberg of the University of Minnesota. After that, it drops slightly if rejections continue to pile up. 72% of the 177 participants in the study found employment within the 20-week span of the research. Source: Study of unemployed job-seekers yields new evidence of how success resides within individuals themselves

Jesus once said: "...do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today" (Matthew 6:34). In his book, When the Bad Times Are Over for Good, Pastor Gerald Mann restated Jesus' teaching memorably by saying, "Wait to worry."

When disasters like losing our jobs hit us, it's easy to go into panic mode, dreading the future. But it's a good procedure to wait to worry and instead, take the following steps:

• Lay your situation before God, asking for His wisdom, intervention, and guidance. 
• Stay connected with other people, especially ones who will be supportive to you, including those who will be lovingly honest with you about faults and failings. 
• Live in the present, accept God's forgiveness for your past, offered through Jesus Christ, and ask God to secure your future. 
• Wait to worry. Jesus says that without Him, we can do nothing (John 15:5). But when we trust in Him, we live in the same confidence enjoyed by the apostle Paul, who wrote that he could do all things through Christ, Who gives strength to believers (Philippians 4:13).

The God we meet in Jesus Christ can help us "wait to worry," no matter what our circumstances.

Waiting to worry doesn't mean being passive. In fact, the opposite is the case.

The worrier is paralyzed by fear and does nothing.

When we put off worry and instead, put our needs in God's hands, God frees us to be creative, bold, and confident in the face of even daunting circumstances. We become less susceptible to expensive quick-fix schemes or to the temptations to anesthetize ourselves with unhealthy physical or psychological addictions.

What job seekers who have experienced rejection for a period of time understand is that rejection and failure are not fatal. When we put our faith in the God we know in Jesus Christ, we don't have to learn that truth after long periods of debilitating worry and heartache. We can know it all the time!

Through faith in Christ, our personal disasters and setbacks can be catalysts for giving our lives to Christ. And when we do that, disasters can even be conduits for the blessings of God!