What? Me Worry?

“The sky is falling!”

“Wear a helmet so a 300 pound piece of space junk won’t hit you and crush your skull.”

If you were watching the news last week you saw these warnings and many others. If you weren’t paying attention, here’s what was happening. A school bus-sized 6 ton satellite had lost its orbit, and the result was that it was going to come crashing to earth.

Now, all of the experts had told us that the chance of this thing hitting anybody was pretty remote. In fact, you had a better chance of winning the lottery ten times than getting hit by a piece of this thing. Most of the satellite was going to burn up upon entering the earth’s atmosphere. Evidently, falling from space into the smog and crud of earth’s atmosphere builds up a lot of heat. Kind of like the thighs on a fat kid wearing new Sears Tuffskins corduroy pants. Believe me, I know from experience…

Just like Y2K, the impact of the satellite and the worry it generated was much ado about nothing. Some people got all upset that space junk was going to crush their house, but it didn’t happen. Whatever landed, landed somewhere in the ocean, and only Nemo and some tuna were threatened.

Isn’t it amazing how quickly we can fear something that may not even happen? There are people who fret themselves into ulcers worrying that they will get cancer or some dreaded disease. Do people get cancer? Yes, but not everyone who fears it. And some people who get it never thought twice about it. The end result is that they ruin today worrying about a future that may never come.

I’m not talking about righting old wrongs, or planning for retirement, etc. Those are constructive. I’m talking about worry. You know, the kind that makes you crabby with an upset stomach. The only thing that worry helps is Pepto-Bismol sales.

There are others who spend all of their day worrying about what happened yesterday, or last month, or when they were 12 years old. They can’t change it, but they continue to carry hurt, anger and pain from it. The end result is that they ruin today worrying about a past that they cannot change.

“Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them. If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” Matthew 6:27-34 (The Message)

So what are you worrying about today? What part of tomorrow or your past is robbing today’s joy and wasting the strength God has promised you? I read about a sign in an office that said, “Yesterday ended at midnight.” You’re not promised tomorrow anyway, so why worry about it? Besides, you could get hit in the middle of the night by a piece of falling satellite.

Not wearing a helmet… Jerry