The More You Know Before You Need to Know it, the Better Equipped You’ll Be
Disaster movies are popular and generally do well at the box office. Who doesn’t like a story where everything is crashing down and the underdog hero steps up and saves the world, even though they didn’t think they could.
This reminds me of a quote I heard recently from Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger. He is the pilot who made the heroic landing of the of US Airway’s Flight 1549 in the Hudson River after being struck by a flock of birds shortly after take-off from New York.
Sully said, “We all have heard about ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary situations. They act courageously or responsibly, and their efforts are described as if they opted to act that way on the spur of the moment… I believe many people in those situations actually have made decisions years before.”
Learning and implementing little things into our lives daily is the best way to be prepared for whatever life throws our way.
We all know how life can throw us curve balls when we least expect them.
Jesus tells us this very thing in Luke 21:19-15. He tells us to expect wars and rebellions. Nations fighting, earthquakes, wide-scale food shortages and epidemics. He prepares us as followers of His, telling us we will be sought out and persecuted.
The more we read His word and learn from the Scriptures, the better prepared we’ll be.
Yemen is a country where Christianity is oppressed and discouraged. There is a man there who converted to Christianity. For years he kept his beliefs a secret from his friends and family, knowing that he would be in danger if he was found out.
Then he decided that if the Scripture he was reading was true…then Jesus had his back. He went on to share his faith with his family and now he is ministering to people in Yemen.
Worrying wasn’t going to do anyone any good. He gave the worrying to God.
The Cambridge Dictionary says, “worry is thinking about problems or unpleasant things that might happen in a way that makes you feel unhappy and frightened.”
Things that might happen is the problem. According to several studies somewhere around 85% to 95% of the things we worry about, actually don’t happen. That is a lot of wasted energy.
There are a variety of different studies and statistics that support this. One thing is for sure…we spend way too much time worrying about things that are out of our control.
In Andy Andrew’s book The Noticer, Jones, talks about the futility of worry and discusses the percentages of time being wasted. Jones says to focus on the 8 percent.
- 40% of the things we worry about will never occur
- 30% of the time, we worry about things that have already happened
- 12% of our worry is about needless imaginings about our health
- 10% would be petty-little-nothing worries about what people think
- 8% are legitimate concerns
In Matthew 6:34, we read, “Therefore, stop worrying about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” This sounds like good advice.
Stop letting worry suck your energy and instead put your focus on Jesus and what God tells us in Scripture. This will equip you to be a hero.
