Why Shouldn’t We Worry
Two weeks ago I related how I gave up worry for Lent last year and am doing it again this year. But why should Christians give up worry? I use Matthew 6:25-34 as my reason.
“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 important than food, and the body more imprant 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? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” Matthew 6:25-27 NIV
AND
“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough troubles of its own”. Matthew 6:34 NIV
So we have it from the lips of Jesus: DO NOT WORRY.
But worrying is such a huge part of my life – I am so accustomed to it – when I don’t do it, I feel like something is wrong. I didn’t realize until this past week I needed to replace worrying with something positive. Nature abhors a vaccuum, and I believe our minds and souls do too.
In Matthew 12:43-45, Jesus describes a demon being driven from a man. When he comes back to the man, the demon finds him empty and invites seven more demons into the man. Verse 45 states, “And the final condition of the man is worse than the first.”
I think we can substitute “bad habit” for “demon”. When we get rid of a bad habit, we need to put something positive in its place or we will got back to the bad habit or develop worse ones.
I recently read that the opposite of worry is hope. I’ll talk about hope next week.
Leave a Reply