If you’ve ever had a tree cut down in your back yard, you’ll know that you don’t start by attacking the base of the tree, because that would bring the house down with it. Instead, you lop off individual branches and gradually trim the tree down to a manageable size. Then you can attack the trunk without any danger to the property around it.
That’s a good example of how we should handle the little worries in our lives that have grown into a tree of anxiety. We aren’t going to change a lifetime habit in one blow, but what we can do is deal with each little niggling worry as it comes along, following that simple advice from the Bible that says: ‘Instead of worrying, let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers… Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness will come and settle you down.’