THE WORRY ANTIDOTE

OPENING PRAYER:

Sovereign Lord, Your love and my needs draw me to You. I’m ready for a word from You today.

READ: Matthew 6:25–34

Do Not Worry “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?

“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. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

REFLECT:

Prayerfully consider this quote from Arthur Somers Roche (1883–1935): ‘Worry is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.’

How well Jesus knows the human heart! Although he has told us that God is a heavenly Father – all knowing, all seeing, always caring – Jesus knows how easily worry occupies our thoughts. Worry is mental energy, driven by fear and spent unnecessarily. By focusing on tomorrow’s potential problems, worry steals our mental and emotional energy that should be invested in all God is doing today. Jesus is very insistent on the subject: he commands (vs 25,31,34), reasons (vs 26–30) and exhorts us (v 31) to stop worrying.

Jesus’ solution to a worry-free life is to fill our minds with the truth that God is our Father (vs 26,28,33).

Every second of our life is in God’s caring hands. So until God determines that our time here is over (v 30), he will sustain our life. Therefore, it is pointless to spend energy and time fretting over things that God will provide anyway (v 33). Let’s invest our mental energy and time on God and what matters to him (v 33).

APPLY:

Today follow Paul’s advice to the Philippians: ‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God’ (Philippians 4:6).

CLOSING PRAYER:

Lord Jesus, I have a struggle to trust in completely yet I long for such a trust. Strengthen my confidence and trust in You so that I can take You at Your word!

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