Worrying

Well its finals week here, and many of us are entering into a sort of panicked frenzy. There's so much to study, so much to do to prepare. The library, the student union, and the education buildings will be open late into the night to allow a flood of students retreating from their rooms to cram for exams. You can see students reading notes over breakfast, dripping milk and syrup on their laps. You'll soon see others bumping into each other as they try to walk and read at the same time. If this were another school, you would see an spike in underground sales of "study-aids" and memory-enhancing fungal based elixirs.

But whats it all the fear and anxiety for? Does not our Lord say "do not worry about tomorrow?" Now I'm in no way saying that there's no such thing as a healthy concern for your grades and your future, or that you shouldn't study and do your best. But to be so consumed with worry, that you can't eat cleanly, or walk in a straight line, or appreciate the good things God has given you is clearly a problem. Worrying simply says "God, I don't trust you to take care of all my needs." That is not a message I want to send.

I'm also not saying I'm immune to these struggles. I think about and worry about results a lot. When things don't go how I think they should it can throw me into a deep funk, it can make me question my calling. But this is the profound truth of the Gospel: our own feeble efforts are worthless in terms of salvation. I am a child of God, solely because God chose to save me through Christ. If I fail, it does no throw my salvation in jeopardy: God's love for me is irrevocable and unconditional. God is sovereign, and whatever happens falls within His perfect will.

Keeping this in perspective makes my daily worries melt away.

"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 important 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?

"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies 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, O 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; NIV