Wednesday; June 19

Have you ever wondered why we worry about things that haven’t happened yet? I would like to be able to pose that question to all of y’all, but the plain simple truth is that I may be king of this issue. As I think about the presence of pre-event anxiety and worry, I can come up with a lot of excuses for it, but probably the most believable is that if I fret about it now, before it happens, I might be able to head off some later catastrophe. Now, while this sound noble, the problem with this type of thinking is that it never ends. As soon as I come up with a potential solution to one possible problem, I think of another one and we are off to the mental races again. It never ends! Again, while this might sound like an effective way to address life and challenges it has the potential to rob the enjoyment of living life. There are a couple of truths that we must confront: first, we must accept that we can’t anticipate every potential problem; but maybe the most sobering is that there are a lot of things are outside our control – we couldn’t fix them even if we wanted to. We tease about the bliss of ignorance, but sometimes I am a bit envious of people who can live (and enjoy) the moment in which they live. Oh, that doesn’t mean they aren’t good problem-solvers, it just means that they are willing to deal with the problems as they present themselves.

Can you imagine the pressure Jesus was under during His life on earth? Not only did He have the wisdom to see the potential of the challenges He was going to face, but He also had the divine ability to read people’s minds. Shouldn’t He have been the most stressed person on the face of the earth? Interestingly, He is the One who taught, “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34). That’s more than good advice, it also gives us the freedom to enjoy life as it happens.

Think About It!

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