Worry is generally a situation where people take trust for the future out of God's hands and try to figure it out for themselves. But we are limited and can't see very far into the future and so we worry.
While it is true that we are all dying and that many of us will die of not very comfortable things, God is still using the circumstances in our lives to make us like Jesus. Last week's lecture pointed out that God often doesn't change our circumstances, but he will and does change how we think about those circumstances. Yesterday, our pastor preached through 1 Samuel 23 and noted that even though David was the rightful King of Israel, he was still hiding in the woods. He needed Jonathan to come and give him comfort. Did David have reason to worry? Well in the sense that he didn't know the future, yes. But in the sense that he knew the one who controls the future, no.
Worry is always a lack of trust that God has things under control. Either he does, or he doesn't. Either he loves us or he doesn't. He can be in control, and he can let us die of a terrible untreatable cancer, and he loves us, all at the same time. Colossians 2:6 says that we are to live our lives from day to day in the same way we came to Christ in the first place--by faith. 'Faith' is translated from the Greek word that is also translated 'belief' and 'trust.' When we walk by faith, we are living in a way that trusts whatever God has in store for us.
The only thing worry can do is to bring on the thing we tend to worry the most about--bad health. It robs our joy. It saps our strength. It makes us edgy. It gives us an excuse to be angry with God, which unrecognized turns into bitterness. And it makes us no fun to be around.
The end of Matthew 6 has a lot of good things to say about worry.
Whatever you do with your wife, to it gently and kindly. Relate with her in such a way that she will want to be like you, trusting in Jesus for every aspect of life.
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