Why Worry?

    “’For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27 And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?’” -Matthew 6:25-27 (NASB)

    I always wonder what the world would be like if people didn't have the ability to worry. I’m serious. Think about if anxiety wasn't an emotion. I feel like a lot us can’t imagine a world like that (me included, I can’t quite visualize it either) because worry plays such a prominent role in how we live our everyday lives. We are constantly concerned about anything and everything life throws in our faces, down the most trivial things.

    I really appreciate this verse because of how much we worry in an average day. If your day is anything like mine, it doesn't take me five minutes into the day to become worried that I've woken up three minutes before a class that takes me ten minutes to get to starts. Throughout the day, it's one thing after another.

    But this verse says to not worry about your life. Don't worry about what’s going to happen. I think that’s why we can’t imagine life without worry, why it’s become such a huge part of our thought process. We don’t want life’s curve balls to come at us while we’re unprepared. Of course, in moderation, this isn't a bad thought process to practice. Being prepared is good; quite frankly it’s a bit foolish to just run around in life doing everything on the fly. 
    
    But I think where we get it wrong is what we put into that category of “life’s curve balls”. We seem to have put trivial things like the way we look at one day on the same level as our relationship with Jesus. I love verse 27 when it says, “And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?” We put so much focus on what we think we can control, when really we can’t control what God doesn't let us.
    
    Bad things are going to happen. They always have, they always do, they always will. But there’s so much more to life, so much more that God has blessed us with than everyday trifles that have no other purpose than to take our focus off of those blessings.
    
    I bet if we step back at the end of each day and measure out literally every good thing versus every bad thing that happened to us, a good nine out of ten times the good outweighs the bad. So remember how much we’re blessed and how little we can control. It’s for this reason that trust in God is so important; it helps us sustain this outlook on life.
    
    When we trust that God has got everything under control for us, we don’t have to worry. He’ll take care of us. God’s got your back.