What Are You Worried About?

The world gives us plenty to worry about. 

Many worry about Covid-19. Following efforts to re-open, more than half of the States report increased Caronavirus cases. Last week my wife and I ventured back to a restaurant wearing our masks and seated in an isolated booth. We attended our first church service since March, again wearing a mask and sitting apart from our friends. The U.S. continues to lead the world with more than 2.3 million confirmed cases and 120,000 deaths. 

Students worry about their educations.  Colleges, universities and schools remain undecided about whether they can open their campuses, and to what degree. Many are preparing to continue online-education in the fall.   

Some worry about their jobs.  Stimulus checks have been spent and, over 20 million Americans remain unemployed. While job opportunities are improving, millions worry about their income after unemployment checks run out.

Some worry about the stock market.  Although it has made a dramatic recovery since its collapse in mid-March, the economy remains uncertain and a second wave of Covid-19 could trigger another dramatic downturn.

Some worry about the social upheaval and unrest that has swept across our country with demonstrations for racial equality in cities large and small.  Racial icons of the past are being pulled down. The Confederate flag has been banned from NASCAR.  The commissioner of the NFL has apologized to those who took a knee to protest police brutality.   

The list goes on.  There are lots of things to worry about.  Some big. Some small.

Worry can be a good thing.  Like physical pain, worry can serve as a signal that we need to take action for ourselves and the welfare of others. But worry can also debilitate. All of us experience circumstances beyond our control.  In such cases, worry can rob us of sleep, steal our energy and cripple our creativity.

Jesus clearly wanted us to live our lives free from debilitating worry.

Jesus said, “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.” (Matthew 6:25-34).