Do Not Worry Part 3

Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad. Proverbs 12:25

25  Worry weighs us down; a cheerful word picks us up.

The second hazard is the temptation to be discouraged. Indeed, in this wicked world life is sometimes filled with troubles, anxieties, and fears, even when traveling on the righteous path. The weight of life’s burdens can seem so heavy that it causes people to collapse—even strong believers.

For this reason, Satan seeks to use discouragement to sideline as many of God’s people as possible. For example, both Moses and Elijah became so despondent that they asked God to let them die (Nu. 11:15; 1 Ki. 19:4).

Everyone needs encouragement in life somewhere along the way, and the power of a comforting, uplifting word can be tremendous help. It can energize a discouraged person to continue on for the Lord. And for someone who is struggling with deep depression, it can mean the difference between life and death.

A man planted two rose bushes on either side of his house. The bushes were equally strong and healthy, but after a time the one grew and prospered, the other withered and died. Then the man discovered that the living one was on the sunny side of the house. Live on the sunny side of the street.

How can we quiet our fears and worries?

The answer is something like the new technology being developed to quiet noise in the workplace. Several companies now market headphones that emit what is called antinoise.

“The principle behind all antinoise devices is the same,” writes Philip Elmer-Dewitt in Time. “Noise is basically a pressure wave traveling through the air. Antinoise is the mirror image of that wave, an equal and opposite vibration exactly 180 degrees out of phase with the noise to be blocked. When noise and antinoise collide, they interact with what is called destructive interference, canceling each other out.”

Airport baggage handlers can now wear headphones equipped with a tiny microphone that “samples sound waves at the wearer’s ear, processes them through special circuitry, and broadcasts countertones that cancel the offending sounds in midair. Result: silence, or something close to it.”

In the same way, we can cancel worries and fears with the antinoise of God’s truth.