The Best Drunk Choice I Ever Made

I'll say this up front: I was drunk when I made this vow. I probably wouldn't have had the nerve sober.

It was 2008. The housing collapse in the States had sent shockwaves everywhere, including straight into the Canadian oilpatch, and our young business was hanging on by a thread. Jobs cancelled. Invoices unpaid. Debt climbing like a monkey up a tree. I'd lie awake staring at the ceiling, running the worst case over and over.

I spent my evenings out in the disaster I called a garage. Smoke thick in the air — I'd graduated from cigarettes to Cubans by then, thirty to fifty dollars apiece, which tells you something about my judgment. Empty bottles on the cement floor. Half drunk and half numb, hiding from my wife and hiding from the truth.

But even then I still wanted God. I still loved the Word when I heard it preached under an anointing.

So one night, cracking the top off my umpteenth beer, I got a craving for some Kenneth E. Hagin. I typed his name into YouTube, and a title caught my eye.

Casting Your Cares.

What I heard in that smoky garage changed the whole direction of my life.

Hagin stood there talking about worry like it was a choice. Not a temperament. Not something that happens to you. A choice.

He told about making a vow to God as a young man — that he'd never worry again as long as he lived. Then he grinned and added that he'd passed up some marvellous opportunities.

I laughed. Then I froze.

Is that even possible?

Can a man simply refuse worry, the way he refuses a cigarette he's decided not to light? Up until that night I'd assumed worry was part of the deal. Everybody worries. That's what responsible adults do — you worry; that's how you know you're taking it seriously.

But Hagin wasn't treating it as a personality trait. He was treating it as a sin to repent of and a temptation to resist. And he had Scripture stacked up behind him.

casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. — 1 Peter 5:7

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. — Philippians 4:6

That's not worry management. That's worry eviction.

And as I sat there listening, faith started bubbling up in me. I thought: if he can live that way, why can't I? By the end, it wasn't a thought anymore. It was a fire in my bones.

Now, to be fair, I was half pickled, so some of what I felt may have been a warm beer buzz. But something real was moving too.

I straightened up in my chair, surrounded by the debris of my fearful nights, and said out loud — in a very slurred voice:

"I slooolemly declare that I will never worry another day of my life. From this day forward, I don't worry about ANYTHING."

No angel showed up. No choir sang. Just a broken man in a messy garage drawing a line he'd decided not to cross.

My emotions didn't cooperate right away.

For weeks, fear still came at me, and my stomach still tied itself in knots. But every time it rose up, I said it out loud again: I don't worry about anything. I'll never worry another day of my life. I don't have a care in the world!

At first it felt like lying to myself. I stuck with it anyway.

After a few weeks, something shifted. Whether I finally convinced my own soul or scared off a few demons, I couldn't tell you. I just know it took.

Then it got tested.

We were at the Calgary Stampede when my young daughter, Bonnie, disappeared. One minute she was beside us and the next she was gone. Fifteen minutes of searching felt like fifteen years. Cara went from curious to frantic, screaming Bonnie's name through a crowd of tens of thousands of people, all of them now looking at us.

I felt the pull to panic. I want to be honest — fear went right up my spine. But under my breath I started mumbling: I don't worry about anything. God always comes through for me. Thank You, Lord, that You're helping me find my daughter.

Cara found a police officer who didn't seem terribly concerned, shouted at him for a bit, then came sprinting back to me with tears running down her face.

"Steve! Our daughter is MISSING! What are YOU going to DO about it?"

And I said, "Well, I'm not going to worry, that's for sure."

She said, "That's your problem! You never worry about anything!"

I said, "You're right! I don't, and I never will!"

Then I walked off, shaking, to find somewhere quiet to pray, because fear was pounding on my door. And I said, "Lord, I told You I'd never worry another day of my life and I won't. But I am in a predicament here that requires Your immediate attention. I need You to help me find my daughter and I need Your your help right NOW!"

My phone rang at that exact moment. My father-in-law. "I found Bonnie over by the cotton candy."

It's held up under bigger things than that.

In May of 2023, wildfires forced the evacuation of our whole town. We fled to Edmonton and sat in a hotel watching satellite images of the fire coming south, straight at Drayton Valley. At the last possible moment the wind turned west and pushed it around the town.

On its way around, it burned straight through two quarter sections of land. Both of them mine.

The first was the 160 acres we'd bought to build our family home on — spruce, rolling hills, a creek. Gone in hours. Then the fire jumped the highway and tore through The Altar, the quarter we'd dedicated to the Lord.

Cara wept, and I don't blame her one bit.

Interestingly, however, I felt nothing but peace. Everything in the natural was screaming at me to panic and I was calm as a sloth on a Sunday. No sleepless nights. No frantic calls. I just kept whispering, I don't worry about anything. I trust You with this too, God.

God came through on that one with a miracle, and it's a big one — but that's a story for the book.

Here's what I've come to believe, and it might sting.

Worry isn't the result of bad circumstances. Worry is a sin.

Jesus didn't say try not to worry. He said do not worry. Every "fear not" in the Bible is a command, not a suggestion. Scripture never treats fear as something that simply happens to you. It treats it as something you either tolerate or throw out.

When crisis hits, our instinct is to ask what should we do? That's exactly what Elisha's servant asked when he woke up to an army surrounding the city. Elisha didn't hand him a strategy. He gave him an order.

Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them. — 2 Kings 6:16

Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is a do not. Before you act or speak or plan — refuse fear. Faith often starts not with the right action, but by declining the wrong reaction.

People come to me all the time and ask me to pray that fear would be broken off their life. Somebody asked me last week. And I tell them the same thing every time: I can't break fear off you. It isn't a demon to be cast out. It's a sin to repent of.

They don't always appreciate that. But when they do it — when they get down and repent of it instead of asking me to fix it — something lifts. Not because I broke anything off them. But because they finally let go.

Now let me say one thing plainly, because I'm not a doctor and I don't want to be misunderstood. If you're dealing with something medical, go see somebody about it. That's wisdom, not weak faith. What I'm talking about is the everyday worry we've all agreed to treat as normal and responsible when God calls it unbelief.

Because that's what it is. When I choose worry, I'm telling God I don't trust Him.

Here's how I live it out. I use my mouth like a sword.

When fear tries to come in through a phone call, a bad market, a threatening email, a report I didn't want — I stop it at the door and say out loud: No. I don't worry about anything. I'll never worry another day of my life. I don't have a care in the world.

And understand me: I don't hope I won't worry. I've removed it as an option.

That night in the garage, drunk as a skunk, I wasn't making a positive confession. I was making a covenant. And God has honored it every step since.

You can do this too. But you have to quit treating worry as a feeling that happens to you and start seeing it for what it is. Draw the line. Make the vow. Then when fear knocks, answer it and tell it where to go.

I made the decision to give up worrying in 2008, and by the grace of God I've passed up a lot of marvelous opportunities.

This is from my book Dependently Wealthy — including how that fire on The Altar turned into one of the biggest miracles of my life. Available in paperback and audio on Amazon.