In contemplating the greatest single benefit to “surrendering to a higher power,” I came up with the idea that unnecessary worry is single greatest cause of stress in someone’s life. Taking a practical view of this concept, I really started to contemplate what it would be like to set aside the worry and angst over a particular outcome and trust that “God will sort it out.”
Now you may think, oh that is silly. Just accept God and go on blindly on a fool’s errand of misguided faith. The counter to that thought is this. How much worry do we put into something either that 1. We cannot control or 2. Are paralyzed with inaction due to a over whelming concern for the future? I would argue that these two issues are extremely common, especially in high performing people. I notice it as an acute syndrome with our young people today. With all the available bloggers, and social media people providing advice on how to be awesome, they worry and worry about taking the next step.
This week I have been investigating this concept of accepting some sort of divine guidance, or fate if you prefer the term. If you accept that there is a higher power in some sort of control then you can turn the outcome over to that entity and you can worry about what is right in front of you. Rather then handwringing worry, you can just start doing something and have “faith” that the rest will work out. This is actually a powerful concept, that I think many dismiss as religious quackery. Humans have been believing this way for many thousands of years, so I think there might be something of value here.
For example, I worry a lot about my eating practices. I think about it all the time. I need to watch what I eat. I need to stop eating this or start eating that. Lots of worry. So instead, I have decided to just do a few simple things that I can control and trust that my higher power will take care of the rest. Is this true? Does it matter? The result ultimately has been more action on my part. Eating better without thinking about it and replacing bad habits with good ones.
The issue is that worry causes stress hormones to go into overdrive and you end up exacerbating the problem with further delay and in action. I think that perhaps Carrie Underwood might have it right after all. Just give up on all the worry and focus on what is right in front of you. However, I still think throwing your hands up during a pending car crash is rather stupid, I will think through my response on that concept tomorrow. Are we free from obligation on our part, just because we have decided to have faith?
