It’s one thing to say, “Don’t worry, be happy,” and quite another to live it out. It becomes a bit more difficult when work gets a little overwhelming or when you see people you love going through trials. It also doesn’t help that for just about all of us, worry is our default setting. We don’t have to work at worrying — it just happens.

But Jesus said, “Don’t be anxious.” Just because we may not be able to master overcoming worry in this life doesn’t make us exempt from Jesus’ command to cast all our cares on Him. With trusting God in the midst of worry, it’s not about perfection as much as it is the process.

Worry says that you have to figure it out because God either won’t bother or won’t get it right. But once you recognize the lie, it becomes easier to trust in the Truth. The more you read the red letters in the Bible, the more you’re able to recognize the voice of Jesus above all the other voices that sound like God or sound like you but are really just anxiety disguising its voice.

The problem with casting your cares is that you often end up reeling them back in. You have to learn to keep casting until you can eventually leave them in God’s good hands. And it’s not unspiritual or a sign of weak faith to seek counseling or other professional guidance.

The ultimate antidote to anxiety and worry is adoration. It’s not prayer in the sense of having to remind God of your problems but in reminding yourself (and your problems) who God is. The more you live out of that attitude of thanksgiving and gratitude for all the good you see in your life that comes from God, the more you see God in your life and the smaller all those things seem that sometimes keep you up at night. As my favorite writer said, you can be a panicked worrier or a prayer worrier. That choice is yours.