What To Do With Our Worry

What To Do With Our Worry (Matthew 6:31-34)

Matthew 6:31-34, Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

We spend more time worrying about the things were unsure of and less time worrying about the things we’re sure of. Worry is a part of our lives whether we want to admit it or not. It seems like worry is programmed into our brains. If we don't have something to worry about, we worry about that. Remember, you can't change things when they are outside of your control. It doesn't help you to worry about something you can't change. Keep in mind, God has a solution for every worry that comes into your life.

God never intended for us to stress and worry. Here in Matthew 6, Jesus tells us how to put an end to worry and stress. Jesus gives us specifics on how to turn our burdens over to the Lord and stop the worry in our lives. Notice: The phrase “take no thought” means “fretting, anxious, worry, burdened with cares, to divide, to cut into pieces, to be pulled in different directions, or be split into factions.” This is what worry does to a person. Our goals and desires pull us in one direction and our worries and fears pull us in another. Worry distracts us and cuts us into emotional pieces. "Take no thought " carries the idea of stopping what has already been done. The LORD is telling us to stop worrying. In other words, we are to stop worrying and never start worrying again.

Captain Eddie Rickenbacker and seven crew members ditched their plane in the Pacific on October 21, 1942, and found themselves stranded on three rafts with no water and only four oranges. Tying their boats together, they drifted day after day without food or water, sometimes delirious, tortured by the relentless sun, and constantly encircled by the triangular dorsal fins of sharks. What followed is one of the most incredible stories of our times. “If it weren’t for the fact that I had seven witnesses,” Rickenbacker later said, “I wouldn’t dare tell this story because it seems so fantastic.”

The men credited their amazing survival to something in the pocket of Private Johnny Bartek— a New Testament: pocket-sized, khaki-bound, with a zipper arrangement that made it waterproof. From the beginning, Bartek, a devoted Bible student, maintained his morning and evening devotions. All the men began joining him. They began reading from Matthew, they read until they came to Matthew 6:31-34. It immediately became their hope, inspiration, and prayer: What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

As the men read those verses day after day, provisions arrived in the nick of time and in bizarre ways. Just when they were near starvation, for example, a bird would inexplicably land on Rickenbacker’s head and they would grab it, carve it up for food, and use its innards for fishing bait. Just when they were near death by thirst, a cloud would drift over and fill their raft with water.

Later one of the men, Lieutenant James Whittaker, wrote a best-selling account of the ordeal entitled We Thought We Heard the Angels Sing, in which he described finding the Lord during those 21, never-to-be-forgotten, days. “I don’t think there was a man of us who didn’t thank God for that little khaki-covered book,” he said. “It led us to prayer and prayer led us to safety.”

Living totally without worry sounds, to many people, as impossible as living totally without breathing. Some people are so hooked on worry that if they haven't got anything to worry about they worry that they've forgotten something. Here, at the heart of the Sermon on the Mount, is an invitation that surprisingly few people even try to take up. Why not learn how to share the happiness of Jesus himself?

PRAYER: Lord, I know that You don’t want me to live in the clutches of anxiety; You want me to live life, guarded by Your peace. Please flood and guard my heart with it. Remind me, Father, that peace is not the absence of problems in my life but the calm assurance that what You’re doing is best. You have never failed me, and You will never fail me—my confidence is in You. I pray this in Jesus’ name!

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