We think we are the first generation that really worries. Things are so tenuous, so much could happen so quickly that would forever change my life, if I have a flat and am late to work my life as I know it will be over. Am I in the right career? What am I going to do if I can't pay back that credit card soon?
True, there are things we need to be concerned about. But anxiety and depression seems to be growing. We seem more and more out of control. With so many inputs - computer, internet, phone, blackberry, television - we are taking in so much we can't process it all. We don't have time to resolve things so they build into open loops.
But think back to a time when a farmer would go out to his field, knowing that storm he saw on the horizon was going to flatten his crop. That crop was food for the next year and the surplus was where he would get money to buy the staples like sugar, salt, clothes, and even seed for next year. Or when the father who cleans the streets is run over and killed by a carriage leaving a wife and children in a tenement with no means of support. Or when a poor carpenter in an occupied land sees a downturn in business leaving in question where next week's food, much less next month's or next year's, is coming from.
Stresses vary from one era to the next. Yet the condition is the same. Things we can't control are building all around us.
Enter Jesus and His blueprint for life, His vision of the future. Matthew 6: 25-34. Ending his description of anxiety-ridden conditions he says "Don't worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow brings it's own worries. But seek first the Kingdom and His righteousness..."
The Kingdom He speaks about is often described as heaven. If I accept that, He is saying "don't worry about things here on earth. Someday you will die and go to heaven then everything will be alright. So just make sure you get there."
But in looking at His whole message and His actions I don't think that is where He is going with this. I don't see an instruction to not think about tomorrow or your problems. His response is more one of priorities: Think of this first. Then the other will come. There's a time and a place.
Stress helps motivate us to move from one point to another. That is not bad. I appreciate the teaching that reminds me to place it all in context.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
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