Living One Day At A Time Defeats Worry
Taken from a Red Rock News Article (8/20/24)
Rev. Dona Johnson | Sept 22, 2024
Psychology Today says that anxiety is now the leading mental health problem around the world. Anxiety is on the rise. Increasing numbers of children and adolescents are also being diagnosed with anxiety every day. In the U.S. one third of adults suffer from moderate to severe anxiety. So, what is anxiety? We all experience some degree of anxiety. Anxiety means we are alive and alert. It is not necessarily a bad thing. Dr. Henry Cloud suggests that when our anxiety is no longer manageable and at a heightened state, our adrenal and lymphatic systems which carry experiences such as, trauma, harmful parenting practices, economic and cultural shifts can prompt our systems to be activated all the time. Simply stated, anxiety is worry, a response to unknown danger whether real or imagined. When we experience anxiety, racing heartbeat, negative thoughts and dreadful fear of future events, it’s a warning to us to make the necessary changes in our life to protect, care and listen to what is going on inside us and around us.
Jesus clearly understood the effects of worry and anxiety on the human mind, heart and soul. And so he made it a point to include it in his Sermon on the Mount, a sermon which expanded in great detail the Ten Commandments (Matthew 5-7). He said, “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 than food, and the body more than clothes? 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? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? “(Matt. 6:25-28).
Jesus continues by saying look at the flowers and how your Father clothes them with beautiful blooms. Martin Luther claims the lilies of the field are our theologians. He wrote, ‘The little flowers in the field, which cattle trample and eat, are to become our theologians and masters and to embarrass us still further. Just look at them grow, all adorned with lovely colors! Yet not one of them is anxious or worried about how it should grow or what color it should have, but it leaves these anxieties to God.’
Jesus promises that If we seek God first above all things, all the others things that we so urgently strive for, all driven by anxiety will be given to us. As God provides daily food for the tiny Canyon Wren and the Black-Throated Sparrow, God will most certainly provide for the needs of his people. That is not to say that birds don’t work for their food. They do. But the point Jesus makes is that birds don’t worry. There is not found in them the human weakness of straining to see a future which cannot be seen and seeking to find security stored up and accumulated against the future. What would each day look like if we gave ourselves fully to it?
God who loves his creatures also knows our human limitations. He calls us out of our anxiety to live a life free of worry. Jesus offers us a way to defeat our anxiety—live one day at a time. Each and every day, God calls us to live not in the past and not in the future but to live fully present to each moment. Each moment of every day is a gift from God, rich with countless possibilities to experience God’s presence, protection and provisions. He offers us both peace and prosperity. So, when worry wants to take over your life, look up at the mountains, watch the birds feed from their Creator’s hand, marvel at all the beautiful variety of cactus and cedar trees that patiently wait for the next rain—God’s presence, his grace and his provisions are all around us. As God so generously provides for them, he will surely provide for you. +