"Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?"
This passage goes on to suggest that God, who "dresses" lilies, will surely clothe God's human followers. These can be beautiful words, full of hope and confidence, but they can also seem very naive and foolhardy. Perhaps it seems most foolish to those of us who ask that question while trying to choose from a full closet. No, God will not pick out your Tuesday outfit for you. The question is, when the closet is empty and the cupboards are bare, how can we not worry?
Most of us have encountered the advice to live in the moment. Don't worry about what tomorrow will bring, now is what counts. There is some truth to this. Too often we spend our time in either future or past and miss the present, we miss the smiles of friends and family, the flowers blooming along a familiar way, the perfume of lilacs in the air. We may also miss opportunities to make a friend or choose a different path because we hurried on by to some predetermined goal, or because our memories or regrets about what once was or could have been keep us from seeing what is.
Ecclesiastes is right: to everything there is a season. There are times to reflect on the past, and times to plan for the future. And there are times to savor the present moment - maybe even to savor the experience of remembering or of dreaming of a new future. But I do not really think there is a time to worry. Most worrying is rehashing worst-case fears rather than applying creativity to find solutions. Worrying also tends to be about things that cannot be changed.
Last weekend, my mother and I went up to northern Wisconsin to open Mom's cabin for the summer. Basically that just meant turning on the water and checking for winter damage. On the way up, we were wondering what we would find since the year before we'd had a break-in. I don't remember what we were talking about when Mom said, "That's something I forgot to worry about." We laughed about her wording, but it carried a load of truth. Thinking about something, or wondering about it is one thing, but chewing on it and imagining the awful possibilities is another. Most things we should forget to worry about. The truth is, many of the things that worry us are things that we failed to plan for. We worried about a boat motor because we had not gotten the lock bar on it with a new padlock.
Worst case situations are worthy of consideration to help us be prepared, but then they need to be let go. God really does have a better option at each turning, and we need to be most focused in the now if we are to identify and take advantage of it.
What causes you to worry? Is it the big stuff like climate change or the economy? Or about daily concerns? When someone close to you is ill, or the cupboard really is bare, is Jesus' call to avoid worrying helpful to you?
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