Just Dan Grant

This pandemic has increased a lot of things in our lives. Hand-washing, quarantining, social distancing, sanitizing, cleaning, Netflix and chilling, and the list goes on. I can honestly say that I have never spent so much time on social media in my life! It has definitely become a necessity of late.

One thing that has not increased for me is worry. I simply do not entertain any uncertain fear in my life. I have had my share of it, and my fill of it, and I will not give it one more ounce of my energy or time.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are things that I worry about. If you didn’t know already, I work full time with teenagers. Teenagers cause worry. That’s why middle aged men suddenly go from dark hair to grey hair in a few years. It’s teenagers. I love them to death, but even I am starting to grey and get worry lines. I worry that they are doing something they will regret, worry that they won’t show up for an activity, worry that they will prank me – and then I will have to retaliate – and then some angry parent calls about a pile of manure in their yard, and so on and so forth.

I do worry. But I refuse to live in it, and worry about things that only God can control.

Let me tell you why.

I spent four wonderful years in a christian college in sunny Florida, learning and training for the ministry. Crazy thing though – they want you to pay for college, and some ask that you do it up front. I went down to college with enough money to get me started and then absolutely no plan for what to do about the rest. I took out a small loan my freshmen year to keep me enrolled, and then I just figured it would all work out. And it did, eventually…… after hours and hours of working on campus and miracle after miracle which saved me from being sent home. But things got tight during that time. I checked the cushions in the seating areas, more than once, for change to do laundry. I was paid to clean showers for room inspections, donated plasma for cash, came back on campus early to move luggage around, worked every hour of every summer to make ends meet, and all during that time I worried. Worried about the next bill that was due, worried I would have to leave early, worried I wouldn’t make my loan payment, worried I would not have clean clothes to wear to class, a whole mess of worrying. There were two separate situations where I had to make a payment before I would receive my exam permit, which would allow me to take exams – and I had no cash to do it with. Both times I left my room and began walking to the class where I needed to take the exam – knowing that without my permit, they would send me out of class and there would be a mess to deal with. Both times, as I stepped out in faith, I discovered on the way to class that my bill had been paid and my permit was waiting for me.

I made a decision way back then. I was done worrying. I remember praying in my dorm room and simply telling God that I had given Him my life a long time ago, and that He had set me on this path to get an education, and He had brought me to this college. I told Him then, that if I had to leave and go home, I would do so without shame or embarrassment, because I was only doing what He told me to do. So from that point on, I was done being afraid of what I could not control. He would just need to take care of things ahead of time so that I wouldn’t worry about it. It was kind of a bold prayer for me, but hey, the Bible says we can come boldly to Him, so I went for it.

A crazy thing happened not long after that. I was awarded a scholarship. Blew my mind. I had no idea it was coming. I remember sitting in a chapel service and they announced my name at random. I recall saying “What?!” out loud in disbelief – which prompted some laughs from those around me. I found out later that the scholarship would be awarded the next year – my Senior year – and at the beginning of the spring semester. Once I got through the first half of my Senior year, I was set financially. And then the most amazing part – when I graduated, and went down to settle my account, and get my diploma (after I cleaned my room), I was told that there was still an amount on my account. I was a little surprised – only to be left dumbfounded when they told me it was money they owed me, not that I owed them. I graduated, after working and worrying my way through college, and they wrote me a check and handed me my diploma.

I walked away from that experience with a profound understanding. There was no need to worry about what only God can control and what He has already figured out.

If he can put several people and a bunch of animals with Noah on a boat and take care of them for a year, then He can take care of me. If he can use a large fish as the first Uber driver and have it barf a misguided prophet back onto the right path, He can lead me where I need to go. If a bunch of ticked off brothers could dump their sibling into a pit, and it lead to the protection of Egypt during a seven year drought, then the unexpected in my life is a part of His perfect plan.

And if you suffer from worry, I am not calling you out. If I was, I would be sleeping on the couch tonight. But I am not worried, we have a comfortable couch. Seriously though, worry is only as bad as you allow it to be. I am not speaking from judgement, but from experience. The nights of sleep I lost as a college student, and nights that I have lost since then as a husband, parent, and youth pastor, all bear witness to the fact that worry can take control of your thoughts and ultimately ruin your life.

So here are some things that help me:

• Can I control this? If it was something like, my weight, I can control that. Put the ice cream down and go jog around the block. I can control that. If it’s something like a global pandemic – can’t control it. Don’t want to. So I can’t worry about it or the ramifications that it brings.
• Did God plan this? Yes. Yes He did. So if He planned it, and to the best of your ability, you are where you are supposed to be, then you have nothing to worry about. There’s a song I heard in college that said “The will of God won’t lead you where the grace of God can’t keep you”. I believe that I am exactly where God wants me to be right now, so if I lose my job or get sick or run out of toilet paper, God knows, and He planned for it.
• Will I get through this? No. Yes. Maybe. Don’t know. I have today to worry about and I have enough going on with that. I am running on 4 hours of sleep right now, because my little one kept waking us. We have been in this house for the last three weeks. I need to focus on today. The Bible instructs us to do that – focus on today because tomorrow has it’s own issues. (that’s a paraphrase not a different version so calm down) We could all get sick and have a terrible weekend, but we are physically healthy now – so we are going to make the most of it today.

I heard someone say that “Worrying must help, because most of the things I worry about, never happen.” And it’s true. The stock market, the job situation, the finances, the in-laws, the government, the pandemic – what is going to happen is going to happen whether you worry about it or not.

I’m not.