You remember that catchy, Caribbean song ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’.  Well when you read the last 4 verses of Ecclesiastes 11, you’ll think that Solomon wrote the lyrics!  Verse 9 says “Be happy…and let your heart give you joy…”  Our hearts would love to see this wish come true.  To be happy…to be joyous.  To let go…and let God.  That’s what I want and I’m sure the same for you as well.  Am I wrong?  But to be honest, I think it’s that verse 10 where I get into trouble.  Not police trouble!  But heart trouble.  “So then…” — Solomon is drawing an important conclusion here  for himself and us.  Listen, he says, this is critical to your life in God.  To our life in Christ.  “…banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body…”  Oh yeah, right, easier said than done, Solomon!  Banish is a big, big word–get rid of it, don’t ever let it back into  your heart’s borders.  And Cast Off–no boomerangs here. No return policy in effect.  Throw it away. Don’t look back. However, the older I get, the more I realize that anxieties and worries and fears that I’ve allowed to build up over my lifetime; plus circumstances that have come my way, things out of my control, things that have put my life out of control; that anxieties become a bad habit.  We’re in a fear-rut.  So easy to fall back into it. And we know it’s just not right. But like a bad relationship that we  don’t know how to get out of.  I’ve known many good people over the years, all believers in our Lord, who just seem to focus on their aches and pains, on the negative, on the ‘troubles of the body’. And I may be looking in the mirror when I say this!  Of course, face what needs facing.  But focus is higher up, a calling to live above even the worst pains of life…physical or emotional.  A calling that even Solomon, if you look carefully in the Bible at his life, found next to impossible.  And I find it so difficult to release the grip of that ever-present companion of anxiety and let Jesus do for me what for me seems just plain impossible. But then the Holy Spirit reminds me of what the Bible says, a much better authority than my heart or yours.  For in Christ Jesus, all things are possible  (Philippians 4:13)!  Banish…Cast Off–active verbs to live by  today!  Are you with me? Get with it…Banish and Cast Off!