Thoughts for the Day
Saturday, 13th November 2021: Frowning only achieves wrinkles
Prayer Matthew 6 Worrying God Jesus
Reading : Verses from Matthew, Chapter 6
Jesus said, 'I tell you 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? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life......?
Therefore do not worry, saying, "What will we eat?" or "What will we drink?" or "What will we wear?" For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.'
(Church in Wales Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)
Thoughts
Do you have a perpetual frown on your face, and as you get older do the lines get deeper? Do you feel tense, fretting, anxious, agitated, or full of worry? If so, STOP! All of this will only give you (and me) deep frown lines on your face, or an ulcer!
Worry can also mean we make bad decisions perhaps because we don't give the solution enough thought. We get stuck in panic mode. We should note that Jesus is not saying 'Do not be concerned.' or 'Do not plan to feed yourself.' But we are not to be overly concerned so that our thoughts are totally taken up with the issue and we can think about nothing else. Worry should push us into finding solutions, and nudge us to turn to our loving Heavenly Father who knows what is best for us
Here's a simple example - if we know that we have an exam coming up in a month, this should not mean we think of nothing else but the exam, so that worry fills every moment of our day. What it should do is energise us to revise more, and put our trust in God asking for His help that we can do our best on the day.
Prayer
Lord God,
when something concerns us so much
that we can barely eat or sleep for worry,
remind us that we need to turn to You,
for You have our best interests at heart.
Finally help us to do what we can
to sort out the problem.
Amen.
A helpful cartoon-style video on how to stop worrying is by a Canadian Psycho-therapist. As a Christian, though, I would make one change to his suggestion to end the day with a 'Worry Period' which is when we let ourselves think about those worries that we cannot solve, and then place them on one side. I would suggest that this is the time that Christians think about such concerns before God, place them in his hands and leave them there.