From the vantage point of adulthood I look back at my childhood and think life was so simple then. My worries were few, no bills to pay, no need for calendars and agendas. In short, I left all of the worries up to my parents. But with adulthood comes responsibilities, bills, schedules, relationships and on and on it goes. I’m not trying to imply that responsibilities are a bad thing, quite the contrary but there can be a dark side to responsibilities and that happens when our responsibilities become worries.

Our responsibilities are manageable; our worries are not. When we correctly manage our responsibilities they lead to positive results. When it comes to worries, they’re not manageable and they always lead to all sort of negative results like anxiety, irritation until eventually we become exhausted, overwhelmed and burned out.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been there and a day doesn’t go by in which I cross paths with someone who tells me in one way or another how burned out they are. The interesting thing is that each one of them may have a different reason for being burned out but the common denominator amongst them is worries.

We can manage our responsibilities but our worries will eventually burn us out. So what do we do with our worries? Well, I think we have to go back to the days when life was simple, the days in which we left the worries in our parent’s hands. The difference is that now as adults we shouldn’t deposit our worries into our earthly parents hands. We should deposit our worries into our heavenly father’s hand.

Philippians 4:6-7 NLT
Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Dear Heavenly Father, at times the different worries of life overwhelm me. They cause me to burn out as I handle my daily responsibilities. I deposit in your hands each and every one of those things that worry me, and I pray that your peace guard my emotions and my every thought.