“Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34)
When you look worry up in the dictionary, my picture should be next to it. I even worry about the fact that I worry.
Worry is not a Christian quality. It is sin and represents nothing more than an innate fear of the unknown. It’s exactly what our Christian faith should remedy. So just what does the Bible have to say to those of us who worry? How can we work through our faith to rid ourselves of a trait that can have such disastrous consequences, not only to our health, but in our relationships with others. However, worry especially affects our relationship with God?
Jesus had a great deal to say about worry. In fact, Jesus was the only one in the New Testament who had anything at all to say about it. Isn’t it strange that while he lived among us, no other human – but for Christ – could teach us how to deal with it? Frankly, I think that was God’s way of suggesting that the solution to worrying can only be found in our relationship with him.
There is a direct relationship between worry and quality of our own faith. Matthew records an incident between Jesus and his disciples on the Sea of Galilee. The Sea of Galilee is an unusual body of water. It is 13 miles long and 7 miles wide, 150 feet deep, and 680 feet below sea level. Storms can surface quickly and quite unexpectedly on this body of water. That’s exactly what happened one day when Jesus and some of the disciples were fishing and soon found themselves in a life threatening situation. “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” (Matthew 8:25). Jesus, who was sleeping, woke up and said to them, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” (Matthew 8:26)
Think about it. Here is a group of men who had already witnessed countless miracles and in spite of the fact that God was right there in the boat with them, they panicked. And don’t forget that most of these men were fishermen. In other words, they were not in strange waters. This storm was no surprise. As experienced sailors, they knew the danger. But what they failed to realize was that Christ was in control of everything, even the forces of nature.
We often worry about matters over which we have absolutely no control. What we fail to remember, however, is that we have God right there in the boat with us and he controls it all. Indeed, when we understand who he is, we realize that he not only controls the storms of nature, but he also controls the storms of the troubled heart.
Jesus questioned his own disciples on the water that day about their faith. In Matthew 17:20, he tells us that if we have the faith of a mustard seed, we can move mountains. In other words, the amount of faith we have has nothing to do with our ability to overcome worry, anxiety, panic, or whatever label you may want to use. Instead, it is the quality of that faith, and we don’t need a lot of quality to conquer that fear of the unknown.
Several years ago, my wife’s now deceased maternal grandmother thought she was dying. She was 82 years old at the time, and had been experiencing declining health. When she suddenly became ill, she thought death was knocking at the door. Did she panic? No, she just telephoned her daughter – not to ask for help – but to say, “I’m think I’m dying and just wanted to call you so no one would worry about me when they showed up down here and found me. I’m okay.”
You bet she’s okay. She had that “mustard-seed faith” and knew that Jesus was right there in the boat with her.
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