*** w07 10/15 pp. 4-5 Live With Tomorrow in View *** “Stop Being Anxious” Read for yourself Jesus’ words in their entirety as found at Matthew 6:25-32. In part he said: “Stop being anxious about your souls as to what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your bodies as to what you will wear. . . . Observe intently the birds of heaven, because they do not sow seed or reap or gather into storehouses; still your heavenly Father feeds them. . . . Who of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his life span? Also, on the matter of clothing, why are you anxious? Take a lesson from the lilies of the field, how they are growing; they do not toil, nor do they spin . . . So never be anxious and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or, ‘What are we to drink?’ or, ‘What are we to put on?’ For all these are the things the nations are eagerly pursuing. For your heavenly Father knows you need all these things.” Jesus concludes this part of his discourse with two pieces of advice. The first: “Keep on, then, seeking first [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these other things will be added to you.” The second: “So, never be anxious about the next day, for the next day will have its own anxieties. Sufficient for each day is its own badness.”—Matthew 6:33, 34. Your Father Knows What You Need Do you think that Jesus was discouraging his disciples, including farmers, from ‘sowing, reaping, or gathering their crops into storehouses’? Or from ‘toiling and spinning’ to get the clothes they needed? (Proverbs 21:5; 24:30-34; Ecclesiastes 11:4) Surely not. If they stopped working, they would almost inevitably end up “begging in reaping time,” with nothing to eat or to wear.—Proverbs 20:4. What about anxiety? Did Jesus mean that his audience could escape anxiety completely? That would be unrealistic. Jesus himself experienced deep emotional distress and anxiety on the night that he was arrested.—Luke 22:44. Jesus was simply stating a fundamental truth. Undue anxiety will never help you to solve whatever problems you face. It will not, for example, help you to live longer. It will not “add one cubit to [your] life span,” said Jesus. (Matthew 6:27) Intense, prolonged anxiety is, in fact, more likely to shorten your life. His advice was eminently practical. Many of the things we worry about never happen anyway. British statesman Winston Churchill realized this about the dark days of World War II. Regarding some of his anxieties at the time, he wrote: “When I look back on all these worries I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.” Truly, there is wisdom in taking each day as it comes, especially when the pressures and problems we face could easily create great anxiety in us.
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 05:40:59 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015