Few things rob me more of mental rest, emotional well-being, and peace, consuming extraordinary amounts of time and energy, hijacking my mind, resulting in worry, anxiety, and stress than the “what if” rabbit holes of life.

As human beings we seem to be hard wired and have a default setting, where our minds tend to descend into the abyss assuming a “worst case” scenario when challenges come our way. Perhaps it’s a defensive mechanism such as a fight or flight reaction to real or perceived danger. Whatever the reason, it certainly isn’t healthy or productive when we go down the “what if” path.

Your check engine light in the car comes on. What if the transmission went bad? What if I just blew the engine? We get a medical test result, and the doctor says, I need to see you in the next week to go over the results. Why? What’s wrong?  Is it my heart? Am I going to need major surgery? What if it’s cancer? There are certainly times when the news may be challenging, such as a medical situation, financial set back, loss of a job, or other crisis situations that indeed requires our attention and must be resolved. But too often we tend to go down the mental rabbit hole of “what if”.

These mental gymnastics games that we play out in our minds leads to panic, fretting, worry, and needless stress, robbing us of mental rest, taking a toll emotionally, and stealing our peace. Remaining in this state of anxiety and fear is debilitating and counterproductive.

Personally, over the past few months I have been experiencing significant life challenges, and circumstances, and found myself going down the rabbit hole of “what if”? I wondered out loud, why am I so frustrated? Why do I seem to be floundering? I finally reached the point where I had the presence of mind to realize I had been spending hours upon hours dwelling on the worst possible outcomes to the challenges I was facing. Rather than focusing on the present, the here and now, I had allowed my mind to drift and descend to unhealthy thinking patterns, questioning motives of others, assuming the worst. I began reasoning, “If they do this, then I’ll do that.” I was dwelling on things I had absolutely no control over.

We need to learn and commit to living in the present, and to being present. Several times while I was clearly engrossed on the what if’s, my wife would look my way and ask, “Ralf, where are you? Because it certainly isn’t here with us.” Ouch! Yes, there are times when we must have a plan b for situations and be prepared to pivot or act. But don’t allow “what if” thinking to suck the life out of you.

In the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5-7 Jesus says, therefore do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat? Or What shall we drink? Or What shall we wear? For after these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. And in Psalm 37 David provides a perfect four step prescription to cure worry, and anxiety. 1)Trust in the Lord. 2)Delight yourself in the Lord. 3) Commit your way to the Lord and 4) Rest in the Lord. Those are all present actions, not something to do later, but in the here and now. Our lives will be so much more joyful, fruitful, and satisfying if we will simply trust in, delight in, commit to, and rest in The Lord.

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