Worry? What a Waste!

By Andrew Moser, Regional Director of Development, Ethnos360

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We live in anxious times. That is an inescapable fact.

Like a deer perceiving a speeding car, our brains cannot process the frantic flow of information we are constantly subjected to.

I like to stay current - on world affairs, politics, sports, you name it - and I often find myself buried under the deluge. Sometimes it affects me more than I’d like to admit.

To address this modern malady, I decided to dig into God’s Word for some timeless wisdom on how to handle anxiety, worry, and fear. The technology in our hands may be cutting-edge, but the Bible’s ageless insight isn’t rendered obsolete.

I felt that a deep dive into Scripture might be just the balm my soul needed. So, I dug into one question: what does God say about worry, fear, and anxiety in Scripture?

It turns out He has a whole lot to say about this - worry, fear, and anxiety are addressed over 500 times in Scripture. This attention and repetition indicate that God cares deeply about our freedom from worry, fear, and anxiety.

So, I endeavored to distill this stack of Scriptures into some key findings; I came away with four major takeaways. I want to focus on the first.

I found, conclusively, that God tells us in Scripture that worry, fear, and anxiety are totally pointless… they do us absolutely no good.

Of the 500 verses I combed through, I felt that the single most powerful passage on worry, fear, and anxiety in the Bible comes in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

In Matthew 6:25, Jesus says, “Therefore I tell you…”

Before I go on… what’s that old saying?

“When you see the word therefore, you’ve got to ask yourself, “What’s it there for?”

Let’s come back to that.

Anyway, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says… “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. 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 which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”

(Luke 12 has a side note: Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?" I love that. Adding time to your lifespan is a ‘very little thing’ to Jesus.)

Jesus continues…

“And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,

Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’

For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

There are so many profound things in just this short passage!

I want to focus on the end… “Don’t be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

There’s a recent study that Cornell University did. That study followed participants for years and years… and concluded that 85% of what humans spend their time and mental energy worrying about is literally completely pointless and in vain… it never happens.

85%!

There are so many examples of this in Scripture… just a few that came to mind:

-?????? Abraham tells Pharaoh and Abimelech – on two separate occasions – that Sarah is his sister out of fear that they’ll kill him to get to her because she’s so beautiful.

-?????? Isaac later does the exact same thing about Rebekah.

-?????? Abraham worries God won’t come through on his promises and sleeps with Hagar, who bears Ishmael… which birthed the start of the conflict between the Jews and Arabs, which has killed millions over the centuries… all because Abraham didn’t trust that God was going to fulfill his promise.

-?????? Jacob divides his family twice (Laban, Esau) out of fear that those men are out to avenge themselves and kill him.

-?????? David lost trust in the Lord and counted his armies, fearing a defeat that never came, displeasing the Lord.

Mark Twain said, "I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened."

I find it hard to imagine anything more counterproductive than worrying about something that will never happen.

We borrow stress, preoccupy our minds, and distract ourselves from what already is… all in service of a future that may be nothing more than a figment of our imaginations.

As humans, we obsess over clutching every little bit of control we can grasp - even if it’s just an illusion of control.

As Jesus said, you can’t add a single hour to your life by worrying. And we serve a God so powerful, so in control, that He says that extending your lifespan would be a “small thing.” If that’s not a wake-up call, I don’t know what is.

P.S.… Remember at the beginning, when Jesus said, “Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow?”

What had he said before that led Him to say that?

Well, my friends, that was takeaway #2 from the 500 verses I studied.

I guess I’ll have to share it next time!

You can reach Andrew at [email protected].

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