The Spirit has been chiseling away at my personality this year. He’s shaping, molding, and renovating. The rock is hard so it’s slow work, but it is happening. Even at 41 years of age I’m finding I can change with a lot of work and obedience to His leading. One area I have begun to repent in is worry about the future.

What will happen to me if I never have a family? What if I get sick? What if I have an accident or become disabled? What will happen to me when I’m old? Will I have enough money to take care of myself? Will I regret taking care of everyone else’s kids and never having any of my own?  Will I end up homeless some day? Lots of questions such as these can rattle around in my soul until I make them stop. These questions are fear based and fear producing. I appreciate preparing for the future and having an end goal in mind, but there is a balance. There needs to be a separation between “thinking ahead” and “worry”.

Worry questions like the ones I struggle with tend to make me miss the joy of the life I’m living currently, in this moment. So, Holy Spirit is encouraging me lately to:

Live in the present
Don’t allow worry to trap you in old age and scary futures that may never happen
Don’t worry about tomorrow, for each day has enough trouble on its own
Trust the Lord with your future
Refuse to allow your mind to ruminate about negative “what ifs”