| "Today
is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday"
By Rev. Duncan Johnston, Pastor
St. John's Episcopal Church in Fremont
“Don't worry about the
world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia.” So said Charles
Schultz, the mind that dreamt up the Peanuts cartoon. And he had a point. Jesus put it
well, too. “Don’t worry about tomorrow - it’ll bring enough worries of it
own!”
Welcome to the epidemic
disease we call ‘worry’. And welcome to Jesus, PhD, who has developed a cure for
the common worry that is so effective that if we use it to medicate ourselves we can see a
dramatic and immediate drop in our discomfort, and so live with peaceful minds, the way
God made us to.
“Look at the birds -
they don’t get fouled up about what they’re going to eat - God gives them their
food. And look at the flowers - they don’t worry about what they look like - God
gives the their beauty. And make no mistake”, he says, “you’re worth much
much more to God than birds and flowers are. So don’t worry”, Jesus says, “just
leave it to God, trust him as number one in your life and he’ll make sure you get
what you really need.”
Easier said than done,
though. Do you know the worst thing you can say to a worrier is? ‘Don’t worry’.
That’ll do the trick (not). If it was as easy as that then wouldn’t we have done
it by now? So I find myself imagining a conversation with Jesus and saying to him, “OK
- I understand what you’re saying, you are asking me not to worry. But how? What’s
the solution?”
And Jesus, in this imaginary
conversation, asks me a question in return. He says “where are your eyes fixed?
Because if they are fixed on your problems and the things of this earthly life then you
probably should worry. These things are unpredictable; they are not worthy of your trust.
But,” he says, “if you’re looking to your heavenly Father who will not let
you down, then you can afford to relax. You can breathe a sigh of relief that he will give
you what you need.”
You see, if we think the
universe is governed by chance, and out lives are subject to random events outside anyone’s
control, then we should indeed worry. If our lives are determined by an out-of-control
stock market then we would be right to worry that we won’t have enough money to live
on. If our lives are shaped and dictated by the words and actions of others then, again,
we probably would be wise to worry. But if our lives are hidden in the palm of God’s
hand, and if he is the all-powerful creator and sustainer of the world, then what happens
to us is not meaningless. We’re not the result of chance. Accidents don’t
happen. Events are not random. Our loving Father is in control, and he will see to it that
we get what we need for each day.
Our word ‘worry’
comes from the Old English word ‘wyrgan’, which meant “to strangle.”
As time passed it became the Middle English word, worien, and that meant “to grasp by
the throat with the teeth” or “to kill or injure by biting and shaking”,
just as a wolf might attack a sheep. And it still has that meaning today. Worry -
strangle. Worry - to bite the neck and shake. Now I find that quite telling, because worry
does bite and strangle, doesn’t it? It grips us like a wolf around the neck and
renders us powerless. We become paralysed. We can't concentrate on anything, we can’t
sleep, sometimes we can’t even eat due to our worry.
Maybe
the reason we find it hard to trust him is that we have sometimes pushed him to the very
edges of our lives. We are in control. We manage our affairs. We make the decisions. God
is involved, somewhere, but we’re so much in control that we don’t really need
to trust him for anything. So when the props we have built to hold up our lives begin to
creak a little we react by worrying, because we are just not accustomed to trusting God
for the things we need. Maybe before we can learn to trust him, we need to allow him to
have the driver’s seat of our lives. So let’s nudge over into the passenger
seat, let him drive and don't worry. You’re safe.
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