Worry, Worry, Worrry...

Sitting here, sipping coffee, watching the Olympics in the comfort of air conditioning and a reclining chair...how blessed are we! Life can be so demanding and worrisome...God has reminded me this week of Matthew 6:25-34

“This is why I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they? Can any of you add a single cubit to his height by worrying? And why do you worry about clothes? Learn how the wildflowers of the field grow: they don’t labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these! If that’s how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won’t He do much more for you—you of little faith? So don’t worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ or the idolaters eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Our God clothes the flowers of the field and feeds the birds in the sky...and yet we worry...over everything...that we won't have enough, we won't have the same as someone else, we won't get what we want, we won't be able to have it now...worry and wait seem to pair themselves conveniently together, don't they? We worry that we have to wait so we worry while we wait...forgetting all the while that God has THE plan for our lives...God knows how it will end...God knows what we NEED! Culture and media in America capitalizes on our human desire to be and have the biggest and best (whether that's selfishness or pompous pride) we always want to look better than the person next to us...Romans 12:10 says, however, we should "Outdo one another in showing honor" NOT to outdo in showing possessions or wealth or health or strength or ANYthing else we humans look to as we wish to be the best, BUT to outdo in showing HONOR! Dictionary.com defines "honor" as "honesty, fairness, or integrity in one's beliefs and actions." Honor is a word of Character. Showing more honor does not mean being first, but being last. Allowing others to come before yourself, giving the person next to you the biggest and best rather than taking it for yourself. This is a difficult thing to do with every input into our senses telling us differently...commerce tell us that what we have isn't good enough (forget that it meets our needs, it must be bigger, better, and more expensive), gigantic appliances send the message that what we eat and cook is too small, we must have more, the housing market alerts us to our deficiency in space and size, isle after isle in the book store totes ways to "become a better you," the Internet encourages time wasting and money spending, and all of this only to mutate out feelings of inadequacy into worry and fear at the end of the day. Of course, there are aspects of these things that are good, portions that God provides to us out of His generosity to bless us in our short time here on this Earth...and at the end of the day the choice is yours....a choice to either thank God for His generosity and blessing OR look at your neighbor and decide God hasn't blessed you enough.

My hope is that at the end of my day I will choose to thank God and bask in the glory of His grace and love and blessing so that I might take that blessing and share it with my neighbor. And, through it all, remember not to worry...God's got this.