Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. (Philippians 4:6, New Living Translation)

Today is Wednesday and so I thought I’d share an illustration geared specifically to that day. It comes from the life of British industrialist J. Arthur Rank. Rank was a devout Methodist who had a unique way of dealing with worries.

Being a very busy man, Rank frequently found himself consumed with worldly worries. Try as he might, he just couldn’t make himself stop worrying. So, he decided that if he couldn’t stop worrying altogether, he would at least attempt to minimize the problem. He did this by selecting a box and calling it his “Wednesday Worry Box.”

Anytime something came up that caused Rank to worry, he wrote it down on a piece of paper and placed it inside the box. Then, each Wednesday, he opened the box and reviewed the list of worries that had built up since the previous Wednesday. And what did Rank discover about his worries? To his great surprise, he discovered that most of the things he had worried about had gotten themselves settled enough by Wednesday to no longer merit worry. This taught him that most worry is nothing more than a completely unnecessary waste of energy.

Much of worry’s bite comes from our fear of the unknown, doesn’t it? Since we don’t know what is surely going to happen, we worry about what might happen. Perhaps we would do well to put J. Arthur Rank’s experiment into action. Even if we don’t literally start writing out our worries and placing them inside a box, we can at least learn the same lesson that he learned: that most worry is a waste of energy.

Of course, God’s written word doesn’t tell us to sit around, be passive, and just hope that our worries evaporate. Instead, it advises us to pray about everything (including everything that has us worried). In other words, we should turn every worry into a prayer. That goes for Wednesdays and every other day of the week. So what is it that has you worried today? Whatever it is you should take it to God and leave it with Him. You see, He is the ultimate “worry box” and since nothing is unknown to Him, He can handle whatever we bring Him.