Worry

Mum to teenage daughter: Now you’ve not to worry about....
Teenage daughter to Mum: Don’t you tell me not to worry!
This exchange will sound familiar to many, but it is one which did happen in our family. With the best intentions, ‘Mum’ was trying to help by telling her girl she didn’t need to worry, but the problem was that Mum was one of the biggest worriers herself. The advice was misjudged, and is now a bit of fun family folklore! Can you relate to that?

Matthew chapter 6 has these words: But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And then this....“Therefore I tell you, 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? I have come to love this chapter!

It’s kind of hard not to worry in these days given the economic climate, the state of the decaying morality in high places, our own health, and the health of those we love, the downward spiral of a once trusted government, and the list could go on. It is a very strange and special person who is not touched at one time by some situation or circumstance, which pushes us through concern and anxiety, right to worry itself.

We live in a nice, cosy, theoretical church and personal faith place, where we never have to put our faith to the test in anything big. So, how about putting theory into practice in a safe thing like our worry? Chances are the things you and I worry about are not life threatening, or even close. So, let’s have another look at Jesus words in Matthew Chapter 6, and see if we can prove them to be right? Ready?... OK....GO....