In the hazy spotlight of the corner streetlamp, three pre-teen girls moved to the music that rang out from the nearby portable record player. Hair flying. Arms waving. Hips swaying. Their feet stomped on the concrete driveway to the beat of “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.”

Boots of Selfishness

Summer was our season. Mary, Jeanie and I didn’t see much of each other during the school year because we all went to different schools, but come June we splashed in the neighborhood creek, set up a lemonade stand, or played with our Barbie dolls in the basement rec room.

One year we had the great idea to put on a variety show for our parents. We spent a couple of weeks brainstorming ideas for the show, hunting for jokes in old Reader’s Digest magazines, and rehearsing our skits and dance numbers. Our skits were very cerebral. In one scene, I acted as a patron of a restaurant. Jeanie took my order for soup and swiftly set a bowl in front of me on the card table prop. I began to eat, but suddenly stopped and screamed, “Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup!” and immediately yanked one of our little brother’s Creepy Crawlers out of the water in the bowl. Every rehearsal we snorted with laughter. (Go figure.)

We also wanted to be sure to include the old pie-in-the-face gag, but didn’t know what we could use for the pie without our parents suspecting something. Ultimately we decided that one of the girls would sneak her father’s shaving cream out of the bathroom and squirt it into an aluminum pie plate. Poor Mary was the recipient of the eye-stinging mess!

Finally the big night arrived. Stage? Our driveway. Seating? Lawn chairs. Refreshments? Popcorn and lemonade. The finale was our big dance number. Jeanie had the popular new 45 by Nancy Sinatra. Our arms flailed in an effort to dance “the monkey.” Our heads bobbed and swayed. Our feet did their very best to imitate the moves we saw on “American Bandstand.” All the while Nancy’s voice rang out from the record player, “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.”

We had a blast and our parents enjoyed the evening of home-grown entertainment. It was a great way to spend our summer vacation.

Putting on Shoes of Love Instead

Lately, I’ve been thinking that Nancy’s old song pretty much sums up how we treat one another in this world. Wearing our boots of selfishness and tromping on others to get our own way seems so natural. In fact, it is part of the human condition. Since the moment Adam and Eve listened to the serpent’s lies, we humans have been more concerned about ourselves than those around us.

I can’t abandon the boots of selfishness on my own. But Christ can help me to put on shoes of love instead of selfishness. With Jesus, I am able to wear shoes of sacrifice instead of self-centeredness. These new shoes will be shoes of life, bringing a spring to my step and energy to my days. Walking through life will be much easier with shoes of grace and purpose. And instead of walking all over you, I will walk toward you, ready to serve you in Jesus’ name!

Next step: Pray this prayer to help you wear the shoes of love: Heavenly Father, my human nature tends to walk over other people instead of caring for them. Help me to see the people in my life as You see them. May I see their needs and not just my own. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Excerpted from Divine Design: 40 Days of Spiritual Makeover used with permission by Concordia Publishing House

For more information about this 8-week Bible study, check it out on Amazon or at CPH.org.

When life is uncertain, we often react with worry. We start carrying our worries around with us like a designer purse. We throw more and more of our anxieties into that bag of worry.

The trouble is that these worries can weigh us down. Just like a heavy purse can wreak havoc with our posture and cause shoulder pain, worry can cause physical symptoms.

Doctors tell us that anxiety can bring about short-term physical symptoms:

• fast heartbeat
• headaches
• inability to concentrate
• muscle tension
• nausea
• rapid breathing

When we worry, our bodies release stress hormones into our bodies that, over time, can cause more serious health problems:

• suppression of the immune system
• digestive disorders
• raised blood pressure
• higher cholesterol level
• heart attack and stroke

The book of Proverbs tells us, “Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down.” So what can we do to empty our bag of worries? Here are 5 strategies you can use to defeat worry.

1. Change Your Focus

Matthew 6:25-27 says:

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

Jesus tells us, “Don’t worry about your life.”The original Greek word that Jesus used for worry here in Matthew is merinnao which means “to be anxious about, to have a distracting care.” 

When we worry about something, it is always on our minds. Whatever we are doing, the problem returns to our thought pattern. When we worry, we focus our mind on the problem, but instead we need to learn to concentrate our thoughts on something else. 

One technique to teach your brain not to be distracted by worry is to literally tell it, “Worry about that later.” Although this may seem counterintuitive, research has shown that if people set aside a specific time to worry, they can learn to tame the worrisome thoughts.

Here are some suggestions for a successful “worry time”:

• Schedule a time each day to devote to worrying. 
• Don’t worry at other times. 
• If you start to worry at other times, write the concern down on a Worry List and tell yourself you will worry about it later. 
• Use the list to think about your problems during the “worry time.”

This all may seem rather silly, but the process seems to train the brain to turn off the worrisome thoughts, instead of letting them run wild at all times of the day and night, preventing you from productive work and restful sleep.

Of course, as Christians, we can do more than worry during our “worry time.” 

We can pray.

We can give our concerns to God who knows so much more about them than we do. He has the solution all worked out. Coming to Him reminds us that He has everything under control. 

2. Trust–Give God Your Worries

Jesus began His teaching on worry by simply telling us not to worry. He continues by telling why we don’t need to worry.

If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?  Matthew 6:30 

Jesus rebuked His listeners with the words, “O you of little faith.” in verse 30. It seems to me that Jesus is connecting worry with a lack of trust. I think He is saying, “Little faith = Big worries.”

In verse 31 Jesus repeats the words, “Do not worry.” The Greek verb tense for don’t worry is present imperative—in other words, it’s a command. Jesus doesn’t say, “I suggest that you don’t spend your time worrying” or “You know worrying really is not a great idea.” He comes right out with the order, “Don’t worry.” When I am dwelling on my concerns, I am disobeying Christ’s instructions.

However, I believe Christ’s statement, “Don’t worry,” is also an invitation, an offer to carry my handbag of concerns and apprehensions.  Jesus asks me to trust Him and exhibit to the world that I have a loving Father that will take care of my needs instead of acting like people who don’t have God as their source. 

Truthfully, my human mind sometimes makes God small; it attempts to craft God in my image. I limit His goodness and power, because I subconsciously picture Him to be like me: powerless, selfish, and unwilling to help. 

But God is Big and He assures me that He is in control of the situation. Jesus told the crowd on the mountain, “Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs” (Matt. 6:32 NLT). 

Before I even voice my concern, before I yearn for something more, before I can even conceive a new desire, my Father knows what I long for and what I require. He invites us to trust Him and give Him all of our concerns.

3. Seek God

Worry is a distracting care. Concentration on God’s provision is an answer to the distraction. Jesus tells us:

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”Matthew 6:30

Here Jesus tells us that seeking is a way to avoid anxiety. What are to seek? God’s kingdom and His righteousness. But what do I spend a lot of my time seeking? “All these things.” What exactly are “these things”? In the previous verses of Matthew 6, we see that Jesus was talking about what I will eat, what I will drink, what I will wear. Jesus urges me to not be distracted with the physical stuff of life. This was probably not an easy task for Jesus’ original audience for the Sermon on the Mount  The people sitting on that mountain had to struggle daily for food and water. They had to walk to a community well and carry water home. Their diet consisted of mostly barley bread and vegetables that had to be prepared by hand each day. 

I have never been too concerned about getting enough to eat, but when I worry, it is often about the physical stuff of life: “Will we have enough money to pay all the bills? Will the roof on the house hold out for one more year? How will we pay for the kids’ college education?” I may not worry about having enough clothes, but I may worry about having the right clothes. My kids may bug me for a certain brand of tennis shoes or I see a designer bag I simply “must have.” 

God invites me to concentrate on His goodness and provision instead of what television commercials declare I need. He asks me to seek His kingdom. He invites me to concentrate on what is eternal instead of what is fleeting.


And then He promises me that He’ll take care of the rest.

4. Live One Day At A Time

So many times when I worry, it’s about the future. I get all tied up in knots about what might happen. But Jesus says:

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”Matthew 6:34

Jesus says, “Don’t worry about tomorrow.” Live life one day at a time.

In 1913 Sir William Osler gave a speech to a group of Yale students. (It seems that worry has always been a popular topic!) Osler urged the students:

“Touch a button and hear, at every level of your life, the iron doors shutting out the Past—the dead yesterdays. Touch another and shut off, with a metal curtain, the Future—the unborn tomorrows. Then you are safe—safe for today!”

If my life is a novel, I am to concern myself with the page that I am on, not all the twist and turns that the plot will take later on in the book. This should be easy, since I know how the story concludes. Because Jesus is my Savior, a happy ending is guaranteed. 

And yet I struggle with concentrating on the here and now. I constantly need to remind myself that these worries can wait. I continually need to tell myself that what I think may happen will probably never come about. But each day I can choose to stay in my “day-tight compartment” and follow Christ’s words, “Don’t worry about tomorrow.”

5. Turn Every Worry Into a Prayer

The apostle Paul also wrote about worry. He told the Philippians:

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”Philippians 4:6-7

Do not be anxious. About anything.

Impossible, you say.

Anxiety and the temptation to worry are hard to avoid. But when they come, we have an alternative:

“Let your requests be made known to God.”  

A few years ago I attended a retreat where the speaker said something that really stuck with me. 

Turn every little worrisome thought into a prayer.

For some reason, I had never done that before. I had always struggled with the instructions in 1 Thessalonians 5:17: “Pray without ceasing.” But then I realized that when I’m worried about something, I think about it all the time. My anxiety doesn’t just show up once in the morning and once at night. If I turned every anxious thought into a prayer, I would certainly be on the track of praying without ceasing.

Obviously, I am not totally successful in turning all of my anxiety into prayer. In fact, recently God pointed out to me that I had not prayed about an issue that has been plaguing my worry center for over a year.

But when I do remember to pray, the peace that God promises floods my soul. That tranquility truly is beyond understanding, for the issue is not settled. God’s peace guards my spirit and keeps out the anxious thoughts when I remember: Turn every little worrisome thought into a prayer.

Pick Your Strategy

So when you find yourself carrying around a bag of worries like a designer purse, pick one of these strategies.

• Change Your Focus
• Trust–Give God Your Worries
• Seek God
• Live One Day at a Time
• Turn Every Worry Into a Prayer

Next step: Pick out the strategy that will help you the most. Will you schedule a worry time? Will you remind yourself to focus on living one day at a time? Can you develop the habit of turning every worry into a prayer? Write out the corresponding Scripture and post it somewhere prominent today to help you remember your new weapon against worry.