Carrying One Stick of Trouble at a Time

John Newton, a sailor and clergyman during the 18th century, has a wonderful analogy of worry and anxiety worth paraphrasing:

All the worries and troubles of an entire year of life are life a giant pile of sticks. And each day, God hands us a single stick to carry for the entirety of the day.  At the end of each day we return to God and return the stick to him.  The next day, we wake up and God hands us another stick.  Each day has its own stick, not more and not less than we can handle.  Occasionally, we come to God and we ask him to hand us today's stick and tomorrow's, and by the end of the day we seem tired and beaten but we return again to God to give him back the sticks.  And some days, we feel haughty and sure so we ask for a week's worth of sticks.  And though God warns us, he hands us the sticks and tells us that he will be there to help us if we can't handle the sticks.  We turn to God, smile, and proceed to take from him the sticks, tie them into a wide bundle, throw the bundle over our backs and leave for our day.  At first, the bundle seems only annoyingly heavy but as the day bears on, the sticks begin to weigh on us as an ever-growing burden.  Thus, by the end of the day, we can barely move and each step feels like a trudge throw the deepest of mired bogs until we finally collapse under the weight of bundle.  As we lay there, beaten under the force of our own troubles bundled beyond our ability to care for them, God comes up behind us and picks the overwhelming bundle of sticks off us us with ease and helps us back to our feet.

The point is that, though our natural inclination is to take on today's, tomorrow's, and next week's challenges and worries, God has ordained that we should not take on more than what we can handle, for each day has enough trouble for itself (Matt. 6:34), and we should only attempt to take on that which God has placed before us for the moment.  God desires that we, in humility, press into Him to cover and care for our troubles and our worries.  Let us then do so with consistency, clinging to Him to preserve us when we would rather pick up the bundle of troubles and to be reminded to carry one stick of trouble at a time.