What Are You Worried About?

As a young teenager, I became intimately acquainted with Alfred E. Neuman.  Not sure who that is?  He is the face of MAD Magazine (do they still publish that?) and as such, he became the face of satire in an otherwise crazy world.  A world filled with war, disease, drugs, a poor economy, and general uncertainty.  Sound familiar??  Alfred’s motto was, “What, me worry?”  But his words gave voice to an absence of worry apparently due to ignorance, rather than an honest conviction that everything would really be OK. While the magazine pointed out the hypocrisy and failings during a tumultuous time, fear and worry still remained once the laughter wore off, no matter what Alfred suggested.

People of faith still aren’t immune to the issues and struggles of life.  That’s why one of the very first teachings of Jesus was about worry:

“This is why I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the sky: …Aren’t you worth more than they? ²⁷ Can any of you add a single cubit to his height by worrying? ²⁸ And why do you worry about clothes? Learn how the wildflowers of the field grow: they don’t labor or spin thread…³⁰ If that’s how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won’t He do much more for you—you of little faith? ³¹ So don’t worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’…³³ But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. ³⁴ Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  Matthew 6:25-34

How can we understand worry?  We all feel like we know what it is, but do we?  Think about the things you CARE most about in life.  CARE implies thought, investment, concern, and even love.  CARE is a positive thing.  WORRY is the exact opposite.  Worry seems to derail the CARE train; it saps away our productive thoughts and replaces them with fear.  In the text above, the real point Jesus is trying to make is that worry can’t reside in us at the same time as faith and trust. We must choose whether we want God to care for us (v.33) or worry about caring for ourselves. 

But the issue isn’t just about our psychological well-being.  It’s about spiritual productivity!  In the parable of the sower, Jesus talks about how worry defeats our desire to be fruitful for the kingdom:

Other (seeds) are sown among thorns; these are the ones who hear the word, ¹⁹ but the worries of this age…and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. ²⁰ But the ones sown on good ground are those who hear the word, welcome it, and produce a crop: 30, 60, and 100 times what was sown.”  Mark 4:18-20

I had always assumed that Jesus’ admonition NOT to worry was to free us from an emotional burden we need not bear.  But His rebuke was intended to free us from worry so that we could focus our energies on the productive opportunities we encounter each day.  But you can’t CARE about those if you’re worrying about yourself, now can you? 

No worries,

Jacob