There is so much to worry about how will I ever get it all
done?
As I watch the news, read the paper and interact with those
around me my list of things to worry about grows beyond the time I have to
worry about them all!
That worries me.
We have hundreds of cute little mottos and slogans to deal
with worry, but they really don't resolve the subtle fear that drives worry in
each of us. First it's bad news, then fears arise and worry follows.
The seed of a bad word, a troubling event, impending war give fear all it
needs to conceive almost anything...and it does! And then we really have
something to worry about!
But what I have found, just as you have, is that the worries
birthed from our fears rarely ever change our lives for the better.
To be honest I am hesitant to address this topic again, I
worry I have visited it too often (smiling as I write that), but I see a world
rapidly offering our fears much more to work with. And yet our fears
really need very little to grow into worries of all kinds.
The fear of what might be creates worries that even the best
fiction writer can't duplicate. This morning, after reading the paper and
visiting news sites, I feel those fears working....cultivating a crop of worry
that will produce fruit and keep me busy all day, but I know better. I
know I can't let that crop grow. Worry never produces fruit that gives
life, but only something that feeds death and so I run back to God for his word
on the fears that grow into worries and I read what Jesus told his disciples
and us.
Jesus said it, but it's woven all through scripture...every
time an angel shows up, every time God has to calm a prophet, every time we
think our world is out of our control....and it always is out of our control by
the way...we fear, worry and panic....and to those emotions Jesus says this,
"...do
not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body,
what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look
at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and
yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than
they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to
your life? “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the
field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even
Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is
how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is
thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So
do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What
shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things,
and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek
first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be
given to you as well."
The
question I have to answer is a very simple one- Is there a God in charge or
not? If the answer is "yes" then fears can be dealt with,
worries can be calmed. But if the answer is "no", there is no
God in charge, then worry away! All is lost, we are doomed!
I'm
so thankful that I know and believe in a God who is king of everything, fully
in charge...even when it seems all is falling apart around me. I often
run to a verse that has comforted me many times. It's a brief verse in Psalms
where David writes these words,
The Lord sat as King at the flood;
Yes, the Lord sits
as King forever! Ps. 29:10
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