Worry
No one can serve two masters. For
you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise
the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money. ¶That is why I tell
you not to worry about everyday life — whether you have enough food and drink,
or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than
clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in
barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to
him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? (Matt. 6:24-27)
Your
ten-year-old is so worried and anxious that he can't eat; he can’t even sleep.
"What's wrong?" you ask. He shakes his head and moans, "I don't
even have a pension plan." Or your four-year-old is crying in bed.
"What's wrong, sweetheart?" She whimpers, "I'll never pass
college chemistry." Your eight-year-old's face is paralyzed with stress.
"I'll be a rotten parent. What if I set a poor example for my kids?"
How would you respond to these statements? Besides calling a child
psychologist, your response would likely be, "You're too young to worry
about those things. When the time comes, you'll know what to do."
Fortunately, most kids don't have these thoughts. Unfortunately, adults have their
fair share.
Worry is a gunny
sack that overflows with "What If’s,” and “How Will’s.” "What if it
rains at my wedding?" "How will I know when to discipline my
kids?" "What if I marry a guy who snores?" "How will we pay
our baby's tuition?" The gunny sack of worry. It’s cumbersome, unattractive,
scratchy and hard to get a handle on. It’s irritating to carry, and it’s impossible
to give away; no one wants your worries. And the truth is you don't want them
either because worry divides the mind. The biblical word for worry (merimnao) is a compound of two Greek words, merizo ("to divide"), and nous ("the mind"). Anxiety splits our energy between
today's priorities and tomorrow's problems. Part of our mind is on the now; the
rest is on the yet-to-come. The result is half-minded living. Worse yet, that's
not the only result.
Worrying is not so
much a disease, as it causes disease. It has been connected to high blood
pressure, heart trouble, blindness, migraine headaches, thyroid disorders, and
a host of stomach problems. Anxiety is an expensive habit, and it might be
worth the cost if it actually worked. But it doesn't. Our frets are futile.
Jesus asked, "Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?"
(Matt. 6:27) Worry has never brightened a day, solved a problem, or cured a
disease. One guy worried so much that he decided to hire someone to do his
worrying for him. Eventually, he found a man who agreed to be his hired worrier
at a whopping salary of $200,000 per year. After the man accepted the job, his
first question to his boss was, "Where are you going to get the $200,000 to
pay me?" To which the new boss responded, "That's your worry."
Sadly, worrying
is one job you can't farm out. But you can overcome it. And there’s no better
place to start than in verse two of the 23rd Psalm. "He leads
me beside the still waters," David declares. And, in case we missed the
point, he repeats the phrase in the next verse: "He leads me in the paths
of righteousness." He leads me.
God isn't behind me, yelling, "Go!" He’s ahead of me, saying,
"Come!" He’s in front, clearing the path, cutting the brush and
showing the way. He leads us. He tells us what we need to know when we need to
know it.
As a New
Testament writer would affirm, "We will find grace to help us when we need it." (Heb. 4:16) Or,
in a different translation, "Let us therefore boldly approach the throne
of our gracious God, where we may receive mercy and in his grace find timely help." (Heb. 4:16) God's
help is timely. When I went to Disneyland
with my kids, I carried all of our tickets in my backpack. When the moment came
to enter the “Happiest Place on Earth,” I stood between the ticket-taker and
the child, and as each child passed, I placed a ticket in their hand. They, in
turn, gave the ticket to the park employee. Each one received their ticket just
in time. And what I did for my kids, God does for you.
He places
himself between you and the need. And at the right time, he gives you your
ticket. Wasn't this the promise he gave his disciples? "When you are
arrested and judged, don't worry ahead of time about what you should say. Say
whatever is given you to say at that time,
because it will not really be you speaking; it will be the Holy Spirit."
(Mark 13:11) Isn't that the message God gave the children of Israel, too? He
promised to supply them with manna each day, but he told them to collect only
one day's supply at a time. Those who disobeyed and collected enough for two
days found themselves with rotten manna. The only exception to the rule was the
day prior to the Sabbath – on Friday they could gather twice as much.
Otherwise, God would give them what they needed, in their time of need. So, God
leads us, and God will do the right thing at the right time which, in turn,
allows us to enjoy today.
"Give your
entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about
what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard
things come up when the time comes." (Matt. 6:34) That last phrase is
worthy of a highlighter: when the time
comes. "I don't know what I'll do if my husband dies." You will, when the time comes. "I don't think
I’ll be able to take it when the children leave the house." It won't be
easy, but strength will arrive when the
time comes. The key is to meet today's problems with today's strength.
Don't start tackling tomorrow's problems until tomorrow. You don’t have
tomorrow's strength yet. You simply have enough for today.
More than 100 years
ago, Sir William Osler delivered a speech to the students of Yale University
entitled, "A Way of Life." In his message, he related an event that
occurred while he was aboard an ocean liner. One day while he was visiting with
the ship's captain, a loud, piercing alarm sounded, followed by strange grinding
and crashing sounds below the deck. "Those are our watertight compartments
closing," the captain explained. "It's an important part of our
safety drill. In case of real trouble, water leaking into one compartment would
not affect the rest of the ship. Even if we should collide with an iceberg, as
did the Titanic, water rushing in
will fill only that particular ruptured compartment. The ship, however, will
still remain afloat."
When Sir William
spoke to the students at Yale, he used the captain's description of the boat as
a metaphor: “What I urge is that you learn to master your life by living each
day in a day-tight compartment and this will certainly ensure your safety
throughout your entire journey of life. Touch a button and hear, at every level
of your life, the iron doors shutting out the Past – the dead yesterdays. Touch
another and shut off, with a metal curtain, the Future – the unborn tomorrows.
Then you are safe – safe for today. Think not of the amount to be accomplished,
the difficulties to be overcome, but set earnestly at the little task near your
elbow, letting that be sufficient for the day; for surely our plain duty is not
to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.”
Jesus made the
same point, but in fewer words: "So don't worry about tomorrow, because
tomorrow will have its own worries. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
(Matt. 6:34) Easy to say; not so easy to do. We are so prone to worry. Just a
few nights ago I was worrying in my sleep. I dreamed that I was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s,
a degenerative cognitive disease, which took the life of my grandmother. I
awakened from the dream and, right there in the middle of the night, began to
worry. Then Jesus' words came to mind, "Don't worry about tomorrow."
And for once, I decided not to. After all, why let tomorrow's imaginary problem
rob tonight's sleep? Can I prevent the disease by staying awake? Will I
postpone the affliction by thinking about it? No. So I did the most spiritual
thing I could have done – I went back to sleep. Why don't you do the same?
God is leading
you, and timely provides. So leave tomorrow's problems until tomorrow. Arthur
Sulzberger was the publisher of the New
York Times during the Second World War. Because of the world conflict, he
found it almost impossible to sleep. He was never able to banish worries from
his mind until he adopted as his motto these five words – “one step enough for
me" – taken from the 1833 hymn, Lead
Kindly Light, whose first verse concludes, “Lead, kindly Light . . . Keep
Thou my feet; I do not ask to see the distant scene – one step enough for me.”
God isn't going
to let you see the distant scene either. So you might as well quit looking for
it. He promises a lamp unto our feet (Psalm 119:105), not a crystal ball into
the future. We don’t need to know what will happen tomorrow. We only need to
know that he leads us, and that "we will find grace to help us when we
need it." (Heb. 4:16)
Grace,
Randy
Worry- Audio/Visual
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