The Sinister Influence of Worry by Margaret L. Sangster

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 4, 1915

The Sinister Influence of Worry

By Margaret L. Sangster

“God keep us through the common days, The level stretches white with dust, When thought is tired, and hands upraise Their burdens feebly, since they must. In days of slowly fretting care, Then, most, we need the strength of prayer.”

To worry is the inevitable habit of the man or woman who has not learned the great lesson of living one day at a time.

Usually we can bear the ills and troubles we have. Somehow we struggle through them, even against odds.

Women at home are tempted to the sin of worry by many little things which in the total make a large amount. They worry because they fear the husband and father is breaking in health. When he comes home at nightfall, weary, perhaps cross, they notice that his shoulders are rounding, and his hair that was as black as the raven’s wing is turning gray, and his temper is less cheery than it used to be. To his worry they immediately add their own, and the atmosphere grows heavy, and the home is dull. No wonder the young people fly from it. The wife may have good reason to look after her husband’s health and strength, but there are better ways than the way of worry to do this. Worry never yet cured a single human ill, it never soothed an ache or a pain, or made lighter an irksome load, or easier a daily duty.

The true relief for most ills is in greater simplicity of living. Added to this, as inestimable, let there be courage and a serene faith.

“Look up and not down, Look out and not in, Look forward and not back, And lend a hand.”

Mothers worry because their sons are drifting into dangerous associations.

Worrying first, they nag next, and nothing so kills filial confidence and accelerates a young man’s downward fall as nagging and faultfinding. If you want people to be good, you must make them happy.

Girls worry lest they did not say the right thing, lest they made a wrong impression. The oversensitive nature is sure that it blundered, and worries lest it did some harm in deed or word. People who are in comfortable circumstances worry lest they shall end in poverty. Rich people worry because they are not richer. Poor people worry about the rent and the coal bill and tomorrow’s loaf. Deep lines are graven on haggard faces by worry.

Ages before “Don’t Worry” clubs were organized for the help of women beleaguered on every side by timid and baleful thoughts, by suspicions of lurking foes ready to pounce upon them, there was One in old Judea who said: “Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment? Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your Heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than they?

“And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto the measure of his life? And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

“Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

“But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

This sublime passage from the Sermon on the Mount is the chart by which, if we sail, we shall not worry. The constant thought that we are in God’s care, that his benignant love is over us, the realization that if we follow a noble ideal, God will aid us in the daily needs, will enable us to walk valiantly and joyously on the road, not cringingly and servilely, as those who fear an attack they cannot foil.—Margaret L. Sangster.