“Worry is the darkroom where negatives become glossy prints.”

A thought by Max Lucado (2012-02-06) from his book, Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear (p. 46). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

Here is the whole paragraph that Max puts this thought.  It says, “Jesus doesn’t condemn legitimate concern for responsibilities but rather the continuous mind-set that dismisses God’s presence. Destructive anxiety subtracts God from the future, faces uncertainties with no faith, tallies up the challenges of the day without entering God into the equation. Worry is the darkroom where negatives become glossy prints.”  Wow!

He goes on, “A friend saw an example of perpetual uneasiness in his six-year-old daughter. In her hurry to dress for school, she tied her shoelaces in a knot. She plopped down at the base of the stairs and lasered her thoughts on the tangled mess. The school bus was coming, and the minutes were ticking, and she gave no thought to the fact that her father was standing nearby, willing to help upon request. Her little hands began to shake, and tears began to drop. Finally, in an expression of total frustration, she dropped her forehead to her knees and sobbed. That’s a child-sized portrait of destructive worry. A knot fixation to the point of anger and exasperation, oblivious to the presence of our Father, who stands nearby. My friend finally took it upon himself to come to his daughter’s aid. Why didn’t she request her father’s help to start with?”

Later Max says, “’Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need’ (Matt. 6: 32– 33 NLT). Seek first the kingdom of wealth, and you’ll worry over every dollar. Seek first the kingdom of health, and you’ll sweat every blemish and bump. Seek first the kingdom of popularity, and you’ll relive every conflict. Seek first the kingdom of safety, and you’ll jump at every crack of the twig. But seek first his kingdom, and you will find it. On that, we can depend and never worry. Eight steps. Pray, first. Easy, now. Act on it. Compile a worry list. Evaluate your worry categories. Focus on today. Unleash a worry army. Let God be enough. P-E-A-C-E-F-U-L.”

So why don’t we request our Father's help to start with?