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The morning after I became born again, I asked my family to bring me the Bible. I got blessed just looking at the cover, where it said, "Holy Bible." Then I looked inside. I got blessed just reading the table of contents. Oh, when you're born again, the whole Bible becomes alive and new to you!

The  sin that I had a great problem to get rid of was the sin of worry. (That statement always goes over big because most people still have that sin, and they don't want to acknowledge that it's wrong.)

I never had any trouble with lying. After I got born again, I never wanted to lie anymore. I haven't had any problem with that one at all. And I never had any problem with other sins. No, the toughest time I had was with this worry business.

The morning after I became born again, I asked my family to bring me the Bible. I got blessed just looking at the cover, where it said, "Holy Bible." Then I looked inside. I got blessed just reading the table of contents. Oh, when you're born again, the whole Bible becomes alive and new to you!

The doctor had recently warned me, "You could go at any minute," so I thought, I'll start in the New Testament since my time is limited. I am going to get in here in a hurry and find out what belongs to me.

I opened to Matthew. Then I prayed, "Lord, before I ever start reading, I promise You this: I make this covenant with You. I'll never doubt anything that I read in Your Word. And the moment I read it and understand it, I'll put it into practice.

I got as far as Matthew 6 and read verse 34. "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

I was reading out of a New Testament, because it was lighter and easier for me to hold. It had a footnote at the bottom of the page. It referred me to Philippians 4:6: "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God."

It also referred me to First Peter 5:7: "Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you." Then whoever wrote the footnotes said, "God doesn't want you to worry or be anxious about anything."

I was just a youngster—just fifteen years old (this was a little before my sixteenth birthday). You talk about worrying—I was taught to worry from the time I was a little child. I was actually a "worrywart." Do you know what a "worrywart" is? I was one of them. My mother and grandmother were world champion worriers, and I had learned to worry from them.

When I first became bedfast, I had two doctors. Finally, there were five doctors on my case. They didn't tell me much about what was wrong with me. When you're an invalid, you can lie there and imagine that everything in the world is wrong with you. And you're sure taking thought about tomorrow, because you may not even be here tomorrow!

But I had just promised God, "I'll practice whatever I understand in Your Word." The Bible had been all light, joy, and a blessing to me. But the further I got into Matthew, it became dark, with no joy, no blessing, and no reality to it. So I stopped to check up. I asked myself, What's wrong here?

Matthew 6 kept popping up. I heard in my spirit, "You said you'd put into practice whatever you read and understood."

"Dear Lord," I said, "if a person's got to live like Matthew 6 said, I'll never make it. I can't live without worrying. That's as much a part of me as my hands and feet!"

I went on reading, but I never got a thing out of it. That was the twenty-third day of April 1933, and it took me until July 4 to get out of the sixth chapter of Matthew.

I never will forget July 4, 1933. I had a pity party all day. I cried all day long. I was sure I couldn't do what Matthew 6 said.

I was feeling sorry for myself. I couldn't live like the Bible said to live, and besides that, I was dying. And I wanted to blame it all on God.

If I were preaching here against using tobacco, a lot of people would jump up and down and shout, "Praise God, that's right, brother—preach it!" But the sin of worry is worse than the sin of tobacco. God doesn't want you to be bound by any habit, but the habit of worry is worse than the tobacco habit!

Doctors have told me that there are more people sick in hospitals, mental institutions—and already dead—because of worry than any other cause. Worry will kill you. (Tobacco will just half kill you, and you'll stink while you're dying. But worry will kill you.)

I turned back to Matthew 6 and read it. After I finished verse 34, I said, "All right, Lord. Forgive me. I repent. I repent for worrying. And I promise You this day I'll never worry again the longest day I live. I promise You this day I'll never be discouraged again. I promise You this day I'll never have the blues again."

Thank God I haven't—and I've passed up some marvelous opportunities, too!

I started practicing that as a teenager. It's easier if you start early in life; it's more difficult when you're older, because you've been going a certain way for many years. It's easier for me now. At first it was difficult, but I refused to worry.

I still had my physical condition. It still looked like I was going to die. Not only was I bedfast, but every day I would have three to five heart seizures or heart attacks. My heart would stop and I'd think it was never going to start again. I'd fight to stay alive with every fiber in my being. I wore all the varnish off of my bed, right down to the bare wood, just holding on. You hold on with everything you've got to stay here.

Right in the middle of one of those attacks, I turned loose. I turned everything over to the Lord, fell back on my pillow, and said, "Let 'er go. I know where I'm going, anyhow." I never had any more problems with fear. I still had the attacks, but they didn't bother me. I had cast that care upon the Lord.

So I started living that way—carefree. I never read a book on the subject; I just saw it in the Bible.