Give Your Worries to Jesus
Nancy feared the future, seeing only trouble. Her husband Tom had fainted three times during a hiking trip in rural Maine. But doctors at a small nearby hospital found nothing wrong. At a larger medical center, where doctors conducted additional tests, they also found no problem. “I was very afraid,” Nancy stated. As her husband was released, she questioned the cardiologist one last time, asking, “What do we do now?” He gave her words of wisdom that forever changed her outlook. “Go live your life,” he said. “It wasn’t in a flippant way,” Nancy recalls. “It was his advice to us.”
Such guidance captures Jesus’ instruction in the Sermon on the Mount. He said, “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?” (Matthew 6:25). Such guidance doesn’t say to ignore medical or other problems or symptoms. Instead, Christ simply said, “Do not worry” (v. 25). He then asked, “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (v. 27).
The prophet Isaiah offered similar wisdom. “Say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come’ ” (Isaiah 35:4). For Nancy and Tom, they’re inspired now to walk more than five miles a day. No longer walking with worry, they step out with joy.
By Patricia Raybon - Bread Ministries
Matthew 6:25-27 (NIV)
Do Not Worry
25 “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? 26 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? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
