Here’s How You Can Avoid Worry Even When God Seems to Take Too Long

It seems 2020 may qualify not only as the year of COVID-19, political turmoil and racial unrest but as the year of worry. We worry about our finances. We worry about catching the coronavirus. And we worry about what may happen next.

That’s why author and speaker Seth Dahl believes in the biblical principle of avoiding worry. “God has a lot to say about worrying. He takes it quite seriously,” Dahl says to host Jeff Struss on the Power, Presence and Glory podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network. “Just because worry is basically, ‘If I’m worried, I’m not trusting, and I’m not praying. Like Paul says, ‘Hey, don’t worry about anything, but pray about everything.’ So if I’m worried, I haven’t been in prayer.

An experience with his family where God didn’t meet a specific need until the last second sent Dahl into a study about trust, both through science and the Bible, he says. That led to his book, Curing Worry God’s Way. And one day, he was playing trust fall with his kids, a game in which a person deliberately falls, trusting others to catch him.

His son asked, “Dad, why do you keep waiting till the very last second before you catch us?”

“I’m like, ‘Well, buddy, if I caught you right away when you start to fall, it wouldn’t even be fun for you. … Would you want to play?”

Dahl’s son said no.

“So is it more fun for me to catch you at the last second or to catch you right away?”

“Catch me at the last second.”

Dahl realized his son trusted him to catch him, which of course was the point of the game. “And right there, I decided … if God caught us too soon, it wouldn’t be fun. And I need to look at life as though I’m in a giant game of trust fall, and I need to put my arms out [and] love it. Even if it’s down to the last second, it’s like, ‘Wow, Lord, this is going to be way more fun than the last time, because You’re waiting longer to catch me. … I’m Your kid, You’re my dad. And I’m trust falling back into You.”

To hear more of Dahl’s teaching on trusting God and avoiding worry, click here to listen to the entire podcast. {eoa}