Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
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Matthew 6:25-34
Do Not Worry
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to their life?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Several years ago, even before the covid pandemic and the wars in Ukraine and Israel and Palestine, I read the results of a survey that said that almost one of every five Americans said they live in a chronic state of fear and anxiety. So even then, when things were what we now consider ‘normal,’ one-fifth of us admitted to being worried and afraid all the time. What made the survey results even more startling was that our rates of fear and anxiety were higher than in some African nations where there is chronic hunger and civil war.
Why do you think that is? Why is it that in a country like ours, with a prosperous economy, a democratic system of government and constitutionally-protected rights, such a large number of us are consumed with worry?
I once heard a talk by Diana Butler-Bass, a leading scholar and writer on the church, that might shed some light on that question. She pointed out some research on religious attitudes among contemporary Americans. One particular item in that research stuck in my mind. Interviewers asked people how often they had an experience of deep and profound “thankfulness.”
You might think that mainline Protestants like us would be deeply thankful for our many blessings, since we’re statistically well off. But sadly, the research showed that we are close to the bottom of the Christian spectrum when it comes to thankfulness.
I can’t help suspecting that the reason so many Christians experience so little thankfulness is that we tend to feel that we deserve to be richly blessed. Lots of us have a strong sense of entitlement, and even feel entitled to even more blessings than they get. That leads to resentment instead of thankfulness. It seems like human nature that we’re not thankful for something we feel entitled to. Nobody sends a thank-you note to the boss when they get their paycheck. Nobody calls to say thanks to the Social Security Administration when their benefits check is deposited. We’re not thankful for those things, because we understand that they’re owed to us. We are entitled to them.
That might be true when it comes to our paycheck or benefits. But it’s a problem when it comes to blessings from God. Because a general sense of entitlement sets us up for a life of worry. Not to mention a sense of envy and resentment of those who have even more.
But if we can switch our mindset away from that sense of entitlement, then we can start realizing that compared to most other people in our world, we really are abundantly blessed. And that realization lets us experience genuine thankfulness to the God who blesses us.
Over the last few years, several research studies have shown that thankfulness has some actual health benefits. Some doctors now advise their patients to keep a “thankfulness journal,” because the studies suggest that regularly reflecting your blessings is actually good for your heart.
And research in the field of neuroscience has reinforced that message. Functional MRI’s – those brain scans that show activity in various parts of the brain – have revealed that reflecting on our blessings – thinking about all we have to be thankful for – actually shuts down the pathway between the anxiety-producing parts of the brain and our neocortex. In other words, these scans show that there is a direct connection between thankfulness and worry reduction.
Those of us who are followers of Jesus should be the most thankful people on earth. And that’s especially true of those of us from the Reformed and Presbyterian part of the church. Because we are taught that our new life in Jesus is a gift out of God’s grace, not something we earn by virtuous living or good deeds. So we don’t have to worry about whether we’re being “good enough to get to heaven.” (We’re not.) But we have new life in Jesus as a gift, not an entitlement.
That should set us free from a big chunk of our worries. Because once we face the fact that we’ve been saved by the grace of a loving God, we can trust that this is a God we can depend on. This is a God who has always provided for us, so we can trust that he will continue to provide for us in the future. That lets us stop worrying.
And what’s more, trusting in God to care for us sets us free to be more generous in sharing his blessings with others.
We serve a God whose willingness to bless his people abundantly has been demonstrated for at least four thousand years. So worry should probably be considered a spiritual failing. We probably owe it to our God to be intentional about reflecting more on our many blessings, so we can stop worrying and start living with greater joy and demonstrating greater generosity.
Let’s pray. Lord, we ask that you would touch our hearts and make us more thankful for the rich blessings we enjoy. And help us also to trust you to provide for us, so that we can share richly, and become conduits through whom your blessings flow into the lives of others. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
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