“Let not your hearts be troubled.” Jesus

“Martha, you are worried about many things, but one thing is needful.  Mary has chosen the better portion.” Jesus

“I’ve worried about a lot of things in my life, most of which never happened.”  Samuel Clemens

Last week I wrote about fear.  Today there is a new tenant that has taken up residence in the hearts, minds, and lives of many; worry.

People are worried about the end of democracy, the loss of individual rights for those who are most vulnerable, the possibility of nuclear war, the further destruction of ecology and acceleration of global warming, and on and on the list goes. 

And then we have our personal worries.  We worry about the future.  In fact, we spend so much time worrying about the future it is almost as if we live there!  We worry about our children and grandchildren, about our health, about money, about our safety, and about the weather.  What are you worried about?  What is troubling your heart?  I invite you to take a moment to ponder that.

Now take the next moment to ponder what good all of that worrying is doing.  In fact, it is doing no good.  Most of what we worry about will never happen, and that which does we can’t control.  All worry does is create stress and anxiety, which have been proven to have long- term negative health consequences.

There is an antidote to worry.  It’s called faith. 

Faith is a very broad term and can apply to many things, but here I’m talking about putting our trust in something and Someone much bigger than world events, people, politicians, and yes, us.  This is what Jesus is commending Mary for, calling it choosing the one thing that is needful.  It is the invitation that Jesus is giving to His disciples.  “Trust in God . . . and in Me.”  Jesus is inviting us to have faithful trust. 

What IS Faithful Trust?

Faithful Trust is giving up control.  Indeed, there is very little in life that we can control whether it be the weather or events playing out on the world stage.  Here the Serenity Prayer comes to mind:  “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Faithful trust means focusing on what is immediately before us, not living in the future or in the past, but in the moment.  For truly that is all that we have.  I heard it said once that each of us are only thirty seconds away from being in a nursing home.

Faithful trust means focusing on what is within us.  God has not given us a spirit of fear and worry, but of love.  That love of God dwells deep within each of us. 

Faithful trust means focusing our attention on that which transcends all of this “stuff”.  We are merely a small blip on the screen of humanity.  We walk on this earth for such a short time.  Wouldn’t it behoove us therefore to fix our minds and hearts on that which truly matters and which is lasting and eternal, rather than temporal?

Faithful trust means putting our hope in the One who has overcome all of this, and promises that we also are more than capable of overcoming as well.

I invite you to take that list of whatever is worrying and troubling your heart and to turn it over to God, who is much bigger than all of this.  In so doing troubled hearts will be turned into trusting ones.

I leave you with this precious passage:  “Therefore do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. . .  Consider the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap, they have no storeroom or barn (or house); yet God feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?”