Worried About Life?
A reading for Friday, March 10, 2017: Luke 12:22-34.
Jesus said, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life..." Perhaps it's not worry that is the problem, but failing to recognize from where it is that our blessings come.
Saint Augustine wrote that the secret to finding peace in the world is to "pray that everything depends on God and work as if everything depends on us." Most of us are pretty good at the second part while almost forgetting about the first. We work and we worry and we strive to make all things better, failing to remember that God intends good for our lives too. For if God cares for the earth, the flowers and the birds of the air then how can it be that God would not care for us too.
Worry is perhaps epidemic in our culture of never satisfied and never sated. There is a massive marketing machine designed to keep us worrying that we don't have enough. So that we will keep working and buying, working and buying... It's the same message of ancient Pharaoh who forced the Israelites to work and to work with no peace and no rest. God delivered them. Today we too work and work with no rest, and God promises to deliver us too.
So today, let us not worry and pray instead, for God has promised good things. At the end of the day there will be enough hope to sustain us, enough grace to forgive us for our failures, and enough love to satisfy our lonely hearts. Peace to this house!
Jesus said, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life..." Perhaps it's not worry that is the problem, but failing to recognize from where it is that our blessings come.
Saint Augustine wrote that the secret to finding peace in the world is to "pray that everything depends on God and work as if everything depends on us." Most of us are pretty good at the second part while almost forgetting about the first. We work and we worry and we strive to make all things better, failing to remember that God intends good for our lives too. For if God cares for the earth, the flowers and the birds of the air then how can it be that God would not care for us too.
Worry is perhaps epidemic in our culture of never satisfied and never sated. There is a massive marketing machine designed to keep us worrying that we don't have enough. So that we will keep working and buying, working and buying... It's the same message of ancient Pharaoh who forced the Israelites to work and to work with no peace and no rest. God delivered them. Today we too work and work with no rest, and God promises to deliver us too.
So today, let us not worry and pray instead, for God has promised good things. At the end of the day there will be enough hope to sustain us, enough grace to forgive us for our failures, and enough love to satisfy our lonely hearts. Peace to this house!
Comments
Post a Comment