“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 4:6-7
If you consider the word for “worry” that Paul uses in today’s key passage, understand that that word can mean many different things in the English language. But in the Greek, it is the word “merimnate.” It literally means “to pull in two different directions.” It means “to pull apart at the seams.”
That is a perfect word picture of what worry does to us. Worry will tear you apart. It is the same thing James was referring to in James 1:8 when he takes about being “double-minded and unstable in all ways.”
When you are double-minded, you are divided emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. And when you are double-minded, you are going to be unstable in all your ways — unstable emotionally, unstable mentally, unstable spiritually. Do not miss what this verse in James is saying: worry produces an unstable person in all our ways.
Additionally, the Bible says that worry is just another step toward depression. Proverbs 12:25 tells us, “Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, but a good word makes it glad.”
Has worry ever caused you to be double-minded? Has it ever pulled you in two different directions? Friend, God never intended for you to be pulled apart like this. He wants you to have clarity so that you can live out His perfect plan for your life.
But if we want to live that perfect plan, we have to eliminate worry from our lives. If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, what do we have to worry about? Do not allow worry to play its tricks on you and make you double-minded.