“Morning and evening/Maids heard the goblins cry:/‘Come buy our orchard fruits,/Come buy, come buy: . . . Plump unpeck’d cherries,/Melons and raspberries,/Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches,/Swart-headed mulberries,/Wild free-born cranberries . . . All ripe together/In summer weather,—/Morns that pass by,/Fair eves that fly;/Come buy, come buy:/Our grapes fresh from the vine,/Pomegranates full and fine,/Dates and sharp bullaces,/Rare pears and greengages,/Damsons and bilberries,/Taste them and try: . . . Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;/Come buy, come buy.’” –Christina Rossetti, “Goblin Market.”

Temptation is nothing new. Distraction permeates our modern society—every flashing billboard and unavoidable YouTube ad demands your attention and investment—not to mention the handheld vehicles of nearly every conceivable means of entertainment that we carry around in our pockets every day. These types of temptations are obviously prevalent, but there is another sort of seduction which vies for control of hearts and minds: the invitation to worry. The romanticization of worry has grown to a concerning pitch.

A meta-analysis published earlier this year by the European Society of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry analyzes the growing tendency among today’s youth to romanticize mental health problems and their associated markers. The two main aspects of their assessment were: 1) the nature of romanticized mental health disorders and 2), the reasons for this romanticization. It will likely come as little surprise that one of the leading instigators of this culture of worry is social media—particularly Instagram. Several of the articles compiled by this meta-analysis point out that Instagram posts deliberately used hashtags like “anxiety” to gain popularity and promote negative behaviors while simultaneously encouraging the mirroring of these behaviors. This digital popularization has caused anxiety, worry, and other attributes of genuine mental health problems to be increasingly treated as commonplace. In turn, this can result in incorrect self-diagnoses and the drowning out of those who are dealing with more intense versions of anxiety and worry and actual diagnoses. The ultimate danger of the romanticization of worry is its function as a broad encouragement to embrace fear and stress as something essentially beautiful, admirable, or otherwise attractive.

A romantic or sarcastic exaggeration of difficulty can sometimes feel like a refreshing outlet, but allowing ourselves to repeatedly return to a hyper-focus on looming deadlines ultimately inhibit the rightful worship of God. One of the Merriam-Webster definitions of “worship” is “to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion”. To allow worry to consume your thoughts, influence your emotions, and ultimately affect your actions can certainly be considered as respect of a very extravagant sort. Thus, the Christian response to this almost idolatrous fixation on worry is to refocus on the deserving Object of our veneration.

The antithetical nature of worship and worry is clearly outlined in the Bible through the disparate welcomes which Mary and Martha show to Jesus upon his arrival at their home in the gospel of Luke. When Jesus arrives, Martha is described as being “distracted”, “worried” and “upset” as she busies herself about preparations for the evening. In contrast, Mary refuses the temptation to worry and “[chooses] what is better”. She focuses her attention on Christ instead of allowing herself to be distracted by what might otherwise be allowed to overwhelm her. When worry tempts, it is a denial of our self and taking up of our cross to choose worship instead.

Part of the reason why this choice is so important is because it is time sensitive. In heaven, everything will be perfected and worry—along with the suffering it occasions—will no longer be present. This puts us in a uniquely beautiful position. We are able to choose worship in a capacity that presumably will not be possible in the same way in heaven—that is, we can choose to worship in the face of circumstances that are not at all inspiring. Every deadline, every difficult co-worker, and every distracting temptation is a blessing insofar as we have been granted the ability to partner with faith, which we know to be “the conviction of things not seen”, according to Hebrews 11:1. The intentional choice to mentally or verbally entrust the temptation of worry to God is the embodiment of faith-filled worship.