SIDESTEPPING WORRY
Worry is being increasingly recognized as a tendency that causes great damage. Worry is an abnormal response to stress, which is ubiquitous in a daily life. But while a healthy response enables a person to deal with the stress and overcome a challenge, worry, which involves repeatedly thinking about the problem and imagining adverse consequences drives a person to have mental and physical consequences. Apart from reducing one’s productivity and spoiling relationships, headaches, anxiety, panic attacks, cardiac disease, addictions etc. are all known to be consequences of worry.
Jesus addresses the problem of worry in Matthew 6:25-34;
25 “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? 26 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? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?————-33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
In today’s world, life is equated with food (and our basic needs) and the body with clothes (and our appearance). Jesus points out that there is a difference between saying, ‘we need food for our life’ and saying ‘we live life for food’. When we get to realize that there is intrinsic value to our lives and our bodies, as created by God, food and clothes become needs rather than ends to themselves. Not so in the contemporary world where food and pleasure in different forms are the driving forces behind man’s life as is the need to be superlative in appearance. Recognizing this discrepancy in our lives and correcting it is the first step to sidestepping worry.
The second recommendation is to exercise faith. A firm belief in God as our creator and as One who loves us and values us is essential if life is to be lived free of worry. The One who has created the birds feeds them, the One who has created the flowers arrays them in splendor; likewise the One who has created us will provide for us all we need for our lives and bodies. When does this confidence become reality? Only when man gets to a point of living life with the primary motive of seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. When symptoms of a disease need to be resolved, a physician first needs to have the right diagnosis. When a sportsman misses his mark, he needs to go back to the right technique. When man falls into the trap of worry, he needs to return to what he was designed for- a life lived in submission to God and oriented around seeking Him first.
Recognizing further that worrying does not add anything to our lives and that living one day at a time is really the answer to success, helps us to sidestep worry.
