Please forgive me for yet another food based post! It just so happens that this one has been in my mind for a while now and I feel it has reached the front of the queue.

Oddly, today’s post ends up in a landscape rather like that of my last post, but the journey began with a reflection on Matthew 5:6.

Jesus said: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled. Matthew 5:6

This is a wonderful invitation! Again we tend to react to this in the same way we react to a spoonful of something unpleasant. We reluctantly take it and swallow it down with lots of water in order to get the yummy pudding that is conditional on us eating the ‘healthy’ (aka: yucky) bit. We eat to merit blessing.

But isn’t the joy and blessedness on offer here the very experience of being filled with righteousness? The treat is the righteousness.

In one sense, as a Christian, I do not ‘need’ to hunger and thirst for righteousness. As someone in Christ I have HIS righteousness. It is like I am on a drip being fed intravenously with the righteousness of Jesus. I certainly do not need to go out hunting for righteousness, daily foraging, gathering enough in order to survive another day, to stay fit and healthy enough for heaven. Righteousness is ours in Jesus.

As Christians, we are not starving beggars desperate for any scrap of righteousness. We do not hunger and thirst without hope – frantically searching around for our next meal. Our hunger and thirst for righteousness is not a fearful, gnawing hunger and a parching thirst.

Nor are we successful and independent righteousness producers smugly feasting from the abundance of our home-grown, organic righteousness.

No! By grace, we are abundantly provided for as children of the King, we feast at his table.

The challenge is – do we feast? Is the one who hungers and thirsts for righteousness the one who has taken a bite of something offered to them and been completely amazed at how delicious it is. Of one who has once tasted righteousness and eve since then developed an ever more eager hunger and an ever more desperate thirst for MORE!

Could the call to hunger and thirst for righteousness be a call to enjoy the most delicious flavour known to man? To crave righteousness in our life, to experience it more and more, to long for it, to savour it, and to feast on it?

I am put in mind of the turkish delight Edmund is given in ‘The Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe’. It is a rather odd illustration of the point, however, because Edmund is given this enchanted treat by the evil White Witch in order to entrap him, driving him mad for more so that he does what she wants. Her promise is something like: Blessed is the one who does what I want for he will be filled with turkish delight and hot chocolate. The hunger and the thirst are forced upon him by magic, and the promise itself is empty. The filling is never delivered – once she has him where she wants him he is lucky to get some bread and water.

Not so with God’s people, not so with God’s promises and not so with God’s delights. The food God invites us to crave is wholesome and wonderful – for he is the true ruler, the one and only majestically good King. And by his grace we will crave more and more of it not because sorcery is at work in the food, but because the his Holy Spirit is at work in our hearts.

In my last post I reflected on the invitation to feast on God’s peace.

The problem is though that outside of Blog-World feasting on peace soon becomes a nag to eat our peas – or far worse (at least in my children’s view) our broccoli!

We all do it – but children are brilliantly blatant about it:

“I’m hungry Mummy”

“Would you like me to get you a cracker with some cheese / some carrot sticks / some toast and butter….?”

“No I am not hungry for that, I am hungry for chocolate cake!”

Often the grumble in our souls when we worry does not yearn to be satisfied by God’s peace, but by gaining some control, experiencing success, receiving praise, or simply by things getting a bit easier – finding a bit of comfort and relief amidst the pain and stress.

Last week, the day after posting Do Not Worry: an invitation or a rebuke?, I had what Anne Shirley* would call a Jonah Day.

My ongoing depression meant that the ground beneath my feet felt pretty wobbly even when things were going smoothly. We had a fruitful time in our bible study group, but it stirred something up in me that left me feeling churned and vulnerable and a bit unresolved. Over lunch the NTV and I got down to some ordering for The All or Nothing’s party and in my distraction I melted my brand new egg poacher by letting it boil dry. Well at least we had got the party order ready – I just had to process the payment…Hold on – the delivery for one of the items was going to be either late or cost more than the item itself! Start again…..lots of time wasted…running late. Left to collect the One and Only for her flute exam – forgot something, drove home, set off again….a warning light illuminates on the dashboard – uh oh – it’s the spanner – not good news ….and something is definitely not feeling right. Text NTV and pray he gets it. Pull over when NTV rings – arrange for him to collect the One and Only to meet me and swap cars. Flustered arrival at flute exam. Warm up didn’t go well. The One and Only disappears to do the exam and I am left emotionally shaking in the waiting room. My worry levels are through the roof. Talk about a rumbling tummy! My soul-belly is growling. Feast on God’s peace I tell myself. Take some slow, deep breaths and feast on God’s peace. Or at least nibble on a dry peace-cracker, and slowly sip on some peace-water while you calm down.

Feast on God’s peace!? Seriously? In all honesty my reaction to this exhortation to myself was similar to Miranda Hart’s indignation at the very existence of savoury muffins!

What I was flailing around for as I sat trembling in that church vestry listening to nervous children warming up before their exams, was not, I am ashamed to say, the peace of God. At that moment, the peace of God felt like a plate of cold, soggy brussel sprouts when what I wanted was the sugar-free equivalent of chocolate fudge cake.

[Oh if only there was one!]

I wanted the One and Only to walk into the room beaming that it was her best performance ever only to be interrupted in congratulating her by a text arriving to tell me that someone had offered to pay for the car to be repaired.

I am not proud of this reaction.

“The peace of God felt like a plate of cold, soggy brussel sprouts” – a bizarre phrase to have typed, but also horrifying. How can I be so self-centred, so ungrateful, such an idol-worshipper, so adulterous? I remind myself of Lydia Bennet in the 1990s BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice stamping her feet and whining: “Ohhhh, I want to go to Brighton!”

And yet the invitation graciously remained. Feast on God’s peace. Go on – try it….

Ok – I’ll have a bite – and so I prayed, and exhorted myself: “Rejoice in the Lord always, I will say it again rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all, the Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your requests to God and the peace of God that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. And finally brother whatever is pure, whatever is noble, whatever is praiseworthy, whatever is excellent, think upon such things….

Not a great rendition, but that is what ran through my head in that worry-full vestry.

Don’t worry! Such a simple statement. It isn’t hard to grasp, to understand. I know what worry is and if I forget (as if) I can always look it up!

I mentioned a while back that I had heard an excellent talk on Psalm 59 by Christopher Ash and I hope to give you some highlights today.

Psalm 59 is a prayer to the God of safety. Our God is a God of safety – just typing it that is a delight. But what really makes Psalm 59 wrap its arms round me in a big bear hug is that it isn’t a prayer to the God of safety from a lovely coffee shop or while chilling on a beach – no it is a prayer to the God of safety written by David as he sits basically besieged in his house. Saul’s men are waiting, their instructions to watch and kill.

As with many Psalms there is a repeated faith theme – in this case it bookends the Psalm as well as appearing in the middle – God is David’s fortress.

But more unusually there is also a refrain of fear and threat – you’ll see it repeated word for word in v6, and v14. “They return at evening; snarling like dogs, and prowl about the city.”

And I came away feeling cheered?!

Yes! Because my expectations of what a healthy spiritual life looks like had been shaped by God’s word. When we read the Psalms we see relationship with God in action in a broken world. We see the faith of those who worship the same God that we worship and trust AND we see them operating in the same broken world that hates him and his people.

In other words we see reality. Let’s face it – the dogs do return. We haven’t reached the happily ever after yet. We know it is coming. David knew he would be King – God had clearly promised it. We know that Jesus will return as King – God has clearly promised it. But God has made equally clear that until that time we live with an ever lurking threat of evil – a threat that we should shiver at.

Jumping on in the Psalms to Psalm 106, the following verses really leapt out at me. The writer has been looking back on the marvellous deeds God has done for Israel – in particular the rescue from Egypt and the drowning of their enemies in the Red Sea. He writes:

“The waters covered their adversaries; not one of them survived. Then they believed his promises and sang his praise. But they soon forgot what he had done AND DID NOT WAIT FOR HIS PLAN TO UNFOLD. In the desert they gave in to their craving; in the wilderness they put God to the test.
                                                                                       Psalm 106:11-14, capitals added.

God’s plan is still unfolding and for now the dogs return again and again. We are surrounded within and without by the world, the flesh and the devil. We have a mortal enemy who is out to destroy us.

The language of Psalm 59 is expansive. Arise (v4) is the language of the Ark of the Covenant going out to battle, the scope of the battle is ALL the nations, and the echoes of Psalm 2 extend things well beyond Saul’s jealousy of David.

We are not the anointed King as David was, but we do serve great David’s greater son. We don’t pray these words as the King, but we can pray them with the King – we can pray for the visible victory of God’s anointed King as we serve him in a world that continues to arrogantly think “Who can hear us?” (v7).

Our enemy, like David’s, is not quick to give up. Saul would not be satisfied until he had David’ life, and our enemy is certainly no less determined. Hence the repetition in v14. Our enemy lurks. Remember him leaving Jesus for an opportune time…

Again you may be asking: “This is helpful and encouraging how?” Because it teaches us to expect a struggle between fear and faith. The Psalm reflects the Christian life. The psalmist rests on the promises of God then shivers at the prowling, snarling dogs, and then re-expresses his faith in God. So far so normal – but read on. In a way that is possibly unique to this Psalm, David allows us to linger with him as he experiences the return of the snarling dogs the next night, and as he yet again grips hold of (possibly with trembling, white knuckles) the God in whom he trusts.

What a privilege to be able to accompany him through that.

Over the past week, my depression dogs have reconvened to snarl and scratch at my door. The dogs have returned! What an encouragement to know that finding them there again fits with the pattern of normal Christian experience*. It does not call into question the victory of God’s anointed one, or my faith in him. It is OK to shiver at the threats, to cling to what we know of God and to keep putting one foot in front of another as the Lord enables us. In fact it is more than OK – it glorifies Jesus.

* I use depression as an example of something that returns to me – but I don’t mean to limit application to it. There is clearly a bigger picture going on. I also do not mean to imply that I shouldn’t seek treatment and help!

And so, by his grace, I can say:

“But I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love; for you are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble. You are my strength, I sing praise to you; you, God are my fortress, my God on whom I rely.” (Psalm 59:16, 17).

And I can say this not because the dogs will not return tomorrow, but because no matter how many times they return they will never succeed, they will never be satisfied. And one Day, when God’s plan has fully unfolded – they be truly and completely outside – not outside my door – but simply outside – Rev 22:15.

With thanks to Christopher Ash who opened up God’s word so clearly and winsomely for us back in May.

So where were we? Oh yes, the doors have been re-opened. An orderly queue has formed and Security is on hand to keep things under control.

My security team is headed up by Kevin Kline’s bodyguard in the film Dave!

A worry has come through the hope detector and acknowledged and submitted to the big picture, the fundamental problem and the wonderful hope that is mine in Jesus.

It approaches the reception desk. Let’s watch the Brain Receptionist get to work.

Question 1: Are you real?
Many worries are simply the shadow of something that has already been resolved or processed, residual feelings with nothing concrete behind them.

If the answer is “No” – call security and escort them from the building. If the answer is yes – proceed to the next question.

N.B. Make sure that your security team are briefed to escort not only the concern itself, but also all of the emotions that accompanied it into the building. Imagine a relatively innocuous looking lady being shown the door, while the dozens out of control toddlers that came in with her are left to rampage freely around the building. 

Question 2: Are you my concern or should you be somewhere else?
Many of the things that wander through my doors are just not my concern, they walk past my door and for some reason I beckon them in and make them a coffee!

To help determine this consider: Is there any sense in which this under my control? Is this within my God-given jurisdiction or not?

If the answer is “No. I’m not quite sure how I ended up here actually – didn’t you grab me by the arm and pull me in?” Then send them on their way with an apology and give it no more thought.

Depending on the intruder/hapless visitor – it may be appropriate to send it to the Lord in prayer before dismissing it completely.

Question 3: Have you been here before? 
I’m sure every receptionist has this kind of visitor. ‘Frequent Flyers’ who come again and again with the same sorts of minor niggles and requests, but walk in as though they come with all the pomp and importance of a State Visit.

Don’t be taken in – if they have been before you will have done lots of the processing already. Don’t fill out all the forms again – pull out their file and make short shrift of them.

Just had fun looking up the word shrift and whether it is ever anything other than short!

Don’t give it any more ‘touches’! If there is progress to be made then keep up the questions, if not – send them it away or stick it back in the waiting room where it has strayed from.

Question 4: Do you have an appointment for today?
If the answer is “No” either make an appointment for tomorrow, or simply ask them to come back in a few year’s time!

2 considerations:

Does it really deserve and/or need to be added to a list? (Double check it isn’t a repeat offender who has managed to duck question 3 and is in fact already on several lists!) Many of these ‘worries’ – more than we give credit to – are robust enough to simply be evicted and trusted to find their own way back in due course – like a kind of homing pigeon. Learn to spot these so they don’t clog up your lists!

Either way – tag it. Left to their own devices worries will grab a “TOP PRIORITY’ badge and hang it round their necks on an official looking lanyard before you have had a chance to say hello. Remove it and allocate them the correct priority level – bearing in mind that on a scale of 1-10 very few worries can legitimately claim much above a 5.

Question 5: What time is your appointment today?
Unless it is right now tag it, send it to the waiting room and ignore it. Please note: waiting rooms are for the named concern only. All accompanying persons (such as emotions claiming catastrophes around every corner) can wait in a cafe round the corner.

A note on switch tasking: As women we often applaud ourselves, or are applauded by others, on our ability to multi-task.
However, according to Matt Perman in his excellent book: “What’s best next?”, there is no such thing as genuine multi-tasking. What we are usually doing is switch-tasking. An example: we put the kettle on to make a cup of tea, we go to the fridge for the milk and see boxes of left-overs that need investigating. You get them out, half make a plan to do something with them, and close the fridge door. Where was I? Oh yes making a cup of tea – you re-boil the kettle, and go back to get the milk you forgot…You get the picture. This is NOT an efficient or calm use of time or mental energy – as is evidential when put in black and white, but somehow much less clear at the time. Picking up a task – no matter how small – takes time and thought. Every time we put one task down prematurely and pick up another task we complicate things and clog up our reception area. It feels efficient – why just stand there and wait for the kettle to boil? – but this is a trick! Enjoy just standing there!

So back to our receptionist – if the appointment isn’t for NOW don’t let it in NOW. If it really deserves priority then it almost always wait a few minutes. Give yourself a few minutes to re-jig things. Put your current task down properly – leave a clear way back into the task to minimise pick up time later and then you can give your full attention to this important issue.

If its appointment is for right now then you can still ask it to take a seat for a moment while you sort yourself out. You are the boss here.

The Obvious Problem
I don’t have actually have a Brain Receptionist or a Brain Security Guard. I just have the one brain and it generally has its hands full. I have just said that multi-tasking is impossible and switch-tasking tiring and inefficient – so how can I expect this of myself? How can I both be doing whatever I am doing AND be on the front desk fielding all these worries?

Well the first answer is that this is a servant not a master. If it helps – great. Lots of the time it will all be a lot more hectic than this. BUT I want to see what it is like in practice. I do the worrying thing automatically – could I work towards doing this sort of processing automatically?

We started all this with administration – so let me return to the world of filing and paperwork for some help here.

It is, of course, much quicker to simply stick a piece of paper on a pile, or to read it and leave it in the inbox as opposed to actually working out what to do with it next or where to put it. It takes an investment of time and concentration to keep an item away from the downward spiral of the multi-touch mess and stress. BUT it is an investment. Five minutes spent actually processing it, moving it forward a step, rather than just moving it or letting it sit there with its feet up will save at least 10 minutes when you next want to/have to find it and do something with it. In addition – it is worth noting that each time you do that initial processing you will get quicker at it so it will take less and less time and become more and more automatic.

Could I do that with my worries? Well – we’ll see.

On a more general note I think I need to change the doors into my brain if at all possible. Presently the IN door into my consciousness is really, really obvious and really, really wide and the OUT door is super narrow and hard to find. I wonder if I could do some reconstruction work to reverse this? Is it possible to just see less as I go through life? Can I turn roaming data off? Or is that just the way my brain is wired? Would limiting where I go with this super-absorbent brain help? Please note I am saying super-absorbent – not super! Are there certain places I go – such as shops offering me solutions to all sorts of problems I don’t have or a messy house which is already on the agenda for later in the week –  where I can consciously rein it in? I think the answer may be yes.

Dear Father, you have made me fearfully and wonderfully. Thank you. Help me to live wisely with what you have given me, please use me for your glory and help me to submit to you and not my desperate desire to be in control and to do everything perfectly. You love me, I have nothing to prove, and actually nothing to worry about. Help me to cast my cares on you, while living carefully in the situations you have put me in. Specifically Lord, please help me to keep the doors completely locked until I have had time alone with you each day. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.

Dear reader, I am aware that I have been rather introverted in this current thread. I do hope it has been of some use to you, but let me assure you that my next thread will be focused more directly on the Lord and our relationship with him.    

In a brief interruption to the interrogation process we have been discussing I want to take a look at hope.

I say interruption, but it is more of an interjection to inform our questioning.

This morning’s offering from New Morning Mercies this morning started off by saying:

“Every human being places his hope in something, and every human being asks that hope to deliver something. Where have you placed your hope?”
New Morning Mercies by Paul Tripp – entry for 6th June

As people “hardwired for hope” we assess the world and find it wanting. We look around and know that things could be better.

A thought: we tend to think of a world without hope as a place of despair – but would it be more accurate to say that a truly hopeless world is the actually a place of perfection?

Of course as well as being hard-wired for hope we are also fallen. We are so blinded and fooled by sin that both what we put our hope in and then what we expect that hope to achieve are totally flawed.

Observing that there is a problem we panic and flail around for something, anything, in which to hope. We then burden the hapless object of our hope with the huge job of mending the brokenness, soothing the disappointment and generally making things ‘better’.

No wonder we worry! We live expecting things to be better, but our understanding of ‘better’ is darkened. We struggle through using inadequate tools (objects of hope) to fix the wrong problem!

So how does all this help my Brain Receptionist?

Like this morning – I woke up and opening my eyes was like opening the shop door on the first morning of the January sales. (Cast your mind back a few years before there were sales all the time..!) Only instead of shoppers looking for a bargain there were worries flooding in all demanding attention at once.

Meet the worries:

There is more to do today than I can fit in. I am in a post-holiday low patch and my worry defences are weakened, due to the routine changes and unpacking mess. Relationships are important, but messy. There will be opportunities to disciple my children; help my husband; love God’s people and just live wisely in the world I will inhabit today. What will I do with those opportunities? Will I take them or leave them? ‘Do’ them well and diligently or lazily? Will I miss them or see and act on them? Will I resent them or be thankful for them? I want to sort everything out and then do the relationships – but life doesn’t work that way.

The danger at this stage is for these and other worries to get stuck on a sub-conscious loop, playing again and again. Each replay taking them further and further from being one-touch worries. Enter the Brain Receptionist and her security team.

At this point the wisest thing to do is just to call security, empty the building and lock the doors. Don’t catch any eyes or engage the worry-crowd in any way! If you can’t do it in one touch, don’t do it at all! You’ll find that the genuine issues will stick around and the froth will soon give up.

Now enjoy the stillness! Take a deep breath and make an accurate assessment of the situation. Ask yourself:

1. What is the real brokenness I am seeing here?
2. In what should I place my hope to relieve this brokenness?
3. What can I expect this hope to deliver?

The really great thing is that the big problem is always the same. Our big problem is that the loudest cry in my heart isn’t: Hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come, your will be done.

That the general cry in my household and the world I live in today will not be: Hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come, your will be done.

What I need today is for my heavenly Father’s name to be hallowed, for his Kingdom to come and his will be done. And so the object of my hope is that God will be God lovingly working in my life today, giving me today’s bread and all that I need to be his child today.

This is a robust hope that will not let me down, it will always live up to my expectations. Will everything be sorted? No! Will the to-do lists, the washing baskets or the kitchen sink magically empty themselves? No! BUT I will see the real ‘bad guys’ in my day and be less troubled by the stunt doubles. My hope will be well-placed, and able to deliver what I expect of it. My definition of a good day will shift, and along with that my ability to receive my days thankfully.

Sounds good to me!

But let’s rewind to the clamouring worry-crowd and the way my unmanned brain generally ‘assesses’ things.

The problem: I am not in control of my life today. Things are not how I want them to be. I should be perfect and today will be a constant reminder that I am not. My life should be easy and today will not be easy. My life should be ordered and tidy and today will not be ordered and tidy. If I could just have unlimited time on my own I might be able to sort everything out and feel well and do a good job – but I can’t do that.

With this assessment of the problem my objects of hope become:

• Doing better.
• Being better: more efficient and clever, finding more patience and wisdom and love from somewhere.
• Better children: a sudden erasing of sin and a realisation that my logic and wisdom might be worth listening to, that perhaps I do love them and want the best for them.
• God making things easier.
• Times of escape.
• Getting that table clear, or those suitcases in the loft.

The expectation placed on these hopes: It will be better – by which I essentially mean easier – today.

Daily Result: It isn’t all better today, worry and disappointment and anger. Far from being a one-touch worry – it grows and spawns and speculates and clamours menacingly.

Not such a tempting prospect.

And so to assist my Brain Receptionist and my Brain Security Guard, I am going to install….drum-roll…… a hope detector!

I’m thinking along the lines of those things you walk through in airport security areas that beep when you forget to take off your belt!

Before worries can gain a voice they need to be checked for false objects of hope and false expectations of what they can deliver. If they set the beeper off they need to be turned away or taken to one side to have their perspectives re-orientated!

Paul Tripp gives a great description of a foundational life hope: “basic meaning and purpose, motivation to continue, a sense of well-being, and that knowledge that you’ve hooked yourself to what life is really all about.”

We give so much time and energy to tiny little hopes, we set so much store by them. What we want to be sorted is so much smaller than what is really going on, and so what we hope for is too. Many of our little hopes are fine, as far as they go, and others need to be chucked right out – but NONE should take the place of the massive, certain, foundational life hope that is ours in Jesus.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth, thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide, strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow, blessings all mine and ten thousand beside. 

“Great is Thy faithfulness!” “Great is Thy faithfulness!”
  Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided—
    “Great is Thy faithfulness,” Lord, unto me! 

© 1923. Ren. 1951 Hope Publishing Co., Carol Stream, IL 60188

So back to our Brain Receptionist.

For better or worse my receptionist seems to be the terrifying librarian from Monsters University, who has melded in my mind with the hairy scary librarian from the How to Train your Dragon books. 

Whoever you employ they will need to be firm and confident because the receptionist approach is not popular with worries. Worries thrive when they are allowed to remain non-specific niggling feelings that attach themselves on to other non-specific niggles thus gaining strength…..

The well equipped Brain Receptionist can thwart this process by categorising and conquering! With a small investment of time and concentration he or she can reduce the looming, mysterious shadow behind the curtain (spot the Wizard of Oz reference) for the much less threatening reality casting it.

So we’ve acknowledged the first touch and sent the thought or feeling straight to the front desk to report to The Brain Receptionist so that he or she can:

1. Greet it.
2. Pray.
3. Hold it up to the light and interrogate it.
4. Slap a visitors badge on it – denoting it’s access level, and general status.
5. Pray.

So now for the interrogation!

Question 1: Are you real?
Many worries are simply the shadow of something that has already been resolved or processed, residual feelings with nothing concrete behind them.

If the answer is No – call security and escort them from the building. If the answer is yes proceed to the next question.

Except that I am going to proceed to the Hotel on my favourite island for “lunch with my family”

(In my head that last bit is an Albert Finney Scrooge reference)

So we’ll have to wait for Question 2! How will we manage?!

Well I’m not sure where the ending of my last post went, but I do know it had something to do with a pint of milk and a worry ambush. So we’ll go with that.

So there I am going about my day, making myself a cup of coffee. I go to the fridge to extract the coffee and out of nowhere I’m ambushed by a worry. This particular worry has been living in the fridge for a while and is ‘touched’ every time I open the fridge door.

I call it a worry – but is there really such a thing as a worry? Actually waiting for me in the fridge was the lack of a pint of semi-skimmed milk.

Earlier in the week I had done a double shop – buying as much as possible for the following week’s holiday on top of my usual weekly shop.

As you may imagine I have a very detailed packing list (honed each year with any new specifics) and on this very detailed list is “one pint of semi-skimmed milk to go in the freezer, and one pint of semi-skimmed milk to remain chilled in the fridge to be used on arrival for cups of tea etc”.

I soon realised, however, that the ‘tea on arrival pint of milk’ had got mixed up with the milk for normal consumption and so I had in my mind that I needed to get a replacement pint of milk.

This was not a problem. This was not important. Even if I didn’t take one of the many opportunities afforded me in the following week to get a pint of milk (clearly there on my packing list and firmly gripped as a ‘to do’ in my terrier-like brain) there would be a chance to buy some milk on the journey, or if worse came to worse at our destination the morning after we arrived. Bad things were not going to happen as a result of the absent milk!

And yet! Every time I went to the fridge the milk shaped worry leapt out at me and settled in my tummy. 1 unimportant pint of milk, but multiple worrying worries!

A perfect example of a non-one-touch worry that needs to be better managed!

But how?

Firstly – acknowledge the first touch. Whether you like it or not, as soon as the thought occurs to you, as soon as the shadow crosses across your mind the clock has started, the potential for spawning has been set in motion.

AND secondly: Have a ruthless receptionist on duty in your brain at all times. Don’t give a pint of milk-shaped worry an ‘access all areas’ pass into your heart and mind! Make sure you send them to the right department.

Because I am – well – ME (!) – most things will arrive in my brain, and unless otherwise directed, follow the signs to the worry department and join the restless queue they find there.

Of course your receptionist needs to be not only ruthless, but well-informed – so in my next post I will consider a wise filtering procedure to make sure that each potentially troublesome visitor not only gets to the right place, but causes minimum damage along the way.

Believe it or not I used to be an administrator. Actually I think I would be quite good at it now, but at the time it wasn’t a natural fit.

Have you heard of the concept of ‘one touch’ paperwork? The idea is that to minimise the amount of times you ‘touch’ any one piece of ‘paper’ work (be it physical or electronic…).

In contrast, what tends to happen is that the email or paperwork arrives and you open it, scan through it and then add it to the ‘stack’ (a literal toppling pile of paper or a never decreasing inbox…). Generally the initial touch reveals that some sort of action or decision is required, but either it isn’t immediately obvious what that is, or you just don’t have time to do it right now, or you need to show it to someone else….So it is yet another live issue to join the grumbling (possibly even menacing) queue that is building up.

Touch 2 may arise when you are trying to deal with the stack, looking through the stack for something else or when something prompts you to go in search of it. Unless touch 2 happens in a deliberately planned moment the chances are that touch 2 will move the issue on little further than touch 1, and at the same time increase the tasks emotional presence in the queue.

It is a bit like cutting a worm in two!What started as a relatively non-threatening, simple and possibly even pleasant task now divides – one half is left in the generally polite, but gently pushy things to do queue, but the other half joins the worry/burden/knotty feeling in the tummy queue.

Do you remember the film Gremlins? It starts with a cute harmless thing called Gizmo, but things rapidly turn menacing after he….

Hold on I need to look it up – was it feeding it after midnight or getting it wet or both..??? OK so I now know a little too much about Gremlins – the film came out in 1984 and Gizmo (a mogwai) multiplies when he gets wet, but it is the feeding after midnight that produces the destructive gremlins…

So anyway – one touch admin – it’s the equivalent of not getting tasks wet or feeding them after midnight!

However, I’m not here to explore handy hints for admin, but rather to draw parallels with the way that worries fly into our ‘inbox’ or pile up on our doormat.

(Now I’m thinking Harry Potter!)

What I want to explore is whether we could triage worries more effectively at their point of entry.

I seem to have lost the final section of this post – hopefully I may find it somewhere! 

Those of you who know me will know that I love to put things in containers. I think it is getting worse. Not only are the pencils etc. in my handbag in a pencil-case rather than rattling around loose (- do people really live with such chaos?!) – but within the pencil case my rubber is contained in its own ‘personal’ little plastic bag to keep it from getting filthy.

Don’t worry – I do realise this is a little extreme – and possibly just a tad worrying!

I think I have mentioned Julie Morgenstern (S ort, P urge, A llocate, C ontainerise, E qualise) before – well I blame her for encouraging me!

Recently, however, I have been made aware that there is one area of my life that I am terrible at containerising. My worry.

Jesus is quite clear about this: Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Matthew 6: 34

So I put my eraser in an airtight zip lock baggy, but allow tomorrow’s worries total freedom to trample all over today. Go figure!

Sadly I don’t have an easy solution to this blatant discrepancy in my life, but it has helped me to expose its foolishness (not to mention its disobedience).

I was recently exhorted by a preacher at a church we were visiting to keep our worries in DAY-TIGHT compartments.

Dear Father God, you know my struggles with worry, fear and anxiety. You know the impact they have on my life and the lives of those around me. Thank you for this fresh way of exploring your commands in this area, and more fundamentally your nature of daily provision and mercy. Lord forgive me for keeping my arms so full of tomorrow’s ‘what-ifs’ and ‘will-Is’ that I regularly fail to fully receive the strength and mercy you shower me with today. Thank you that your love covers all of today’s weakness and sin as well as all the future ones too! One day Lord the dogs won’t be snarling at the door any more*, but in the mean time you will be my fortress and my strength.

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it. 1 Thes 5:23, 24

I thank my God every time I remember you.  In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Phil 1:3-6

*more on Psalm 59 to follow as I reflect on an excellent talk I heard on it this Saturday!