A man was sitting on a park bench shredding old newspapers and spreading them around. "What are you doing?" asked a bystander. "I'm spreading this paper around to keep the elephants away." The visitor looked around the well-kept city park. "I don't see any elephants," he said. The man smiled. "Works pretty good, doesn't it," he replied.

Worry is like that. We expend a lot of energy on problems that don't exist. Yes, I know we all face real problems, but we often create additional ones by thinking of all the bad things that might happen but never do.

One of the great challenges for worriers is to turn every care into a prayer and then to stop there, leaving it with God. Some people find this difficult to do, perhaps because they are pessimistic or sensitive by nature. But there is hope!

Paul's counsel in Philippians 4:6 is not a mechanical formula but a tested reality. He had found peace and contentment (vv.7,11). Yet, notice the phrase in verse 12, "I have learned." Learning takes time. It is a process marked by trial and error, and by perseverance. Aren't you glad that our teacher, the Lord Jesus, is patient with us—even when we tear up papers and spread them around?  — Dennis J. De Haan