Soul Sustenance: Sure Cure for Worry

Disclosure: I received complimentary products to facilitate this post. All opinions are my own.

I was a little worried about reading the book The Sure Cure for Worry: Learning to Trust God No Matter What Happens. After all, I'm savvy enough to know that there aren't any "miracle cures" for anything. What I appreciated about this book is that it didn't resort to trite platitudes or formulaic things to try to reduce worry. Instead, it looks at real-life occurrences and Biblical examples of God providing against all adds. Prophecy, wisdom, and God's guidance are all pointed to as reasons why we can trust in God.

It can be hard to trust God sometimes. I know my husband and I have struggled financially in the past, and it's hard to figure out what God is doing. I remember in our first years of marriage how it always seemed that when we finally got ahead a little bit, we'd get an unexpected bill or major car repair. After a while, though, I realized it was actually a blessing - these bills never came up except on months that we had just enough to cover them.

There are lots of real-life examples in the book about people listening to and trusting in God. One of my favorite stories to tell about God's providence is one day when I was on band tour in high school. A friend of mine and I were supposed to do devotions that night for the group right after dinner before the concert. With all our other responsibilities in our assigned tour roles, we hadn't been able to plan it yet. During set up right before dinner we decided that everyone was really on each other's nerves and we needed to figure out a way to get backrubs into the picture, and we'd figure out the details during dinner (nothing like last-minute planning). On the way down to dinner, we flipped open the Bible to pick out a verse, landing right on Matthew 6.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?...So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Perfect! And nice that it worked out to open the Bible right there. We thought we had it all done, and then we walked past the church office. The sign on the door read: "Good Morning! This is God. I will be handling all of your problems today. I will not need your help. So relax and have a great day!" We asked the secretary to copy it for the band. Copies made their way back to my high school, and to this day some of the faculty still have it hanging in their rooms.

Things work out. Not always in our way. And God's answer isn't always the answer we want. But this book reminds readers that God's answer is always the best answer.