Today's Meditation
Read Matthew 6:25-34
25“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34“So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.
Over the years I have both loved and despised this passage. On the surface level it sounds beautiful. It's a "don't worry, be happy" kind of message; an optimist looking at life through rose colored glasses, giving advice to those who fret over everything. But looking deeper over the years, I've realized that life isn't always sunny in Philadelphia and that there is much to worry and fret about.
I have had sleepless nights worrying and fretting over what tomorrow might bring, what steps I should take to figure life out, or to make the next move. Thankfully, for a majority of my life, I haven't needed to worry about where or when my next meal would come, but that wasn't always the case. There was a short period of several months when I lived on nothing but peanut butter sandwiches and eggs; the bread came from a neighbor, the eggs came from a friend, and I spent what little I had on those precious jars of peanut butter. But, I know lots of people whose very existence for years on end, is consumed with wondering when and where their next meal will come. This passage is not a balm of comfort to them. Neither is it a comforting passage for anyone who is struggling with a difficult decision or facing the unknown like treatment for cancer. Or even in our current situation when we worry about loved ones catching a novel virus that scientists still don't fully understand.
But here is where our English translation doesn't completely do justice to the concept presented in this passage. The word merimnao in Greek means to worry, and can have both a positive and a negative connotation. In the positive sense, it can convey the idea of focused care. But, in the negative, it conveys the idea of distraction, occupying the attention of the mind. In English we rarely use this word in its positive, but rather in the negative, so we always read this passage negatively.
In the negative, worrying will do absolutely nothing, but occupy the attention of your mind. It will not solve a problem or fix it. It will not create new ways of thinking or help you come to a solution that was before unthought of. However, if we think of worry in its positive connotation, worry can focus our care or minds to be creative, to think outside the box, to come up with viable solutions to complex problems and to face whatever life might throw at us.
This passage is not meant to shrug off the worries of the day. It is not a rose colored filter that pretends that life is wonderful, but rather allows us to see life in its reality, to see new possibilities without being weighed down by the problems and allow us to rejoice in them and in our God who stands beside us through them.
For levity, I've included Bobby McFerrin's Don't Worry Be Happy
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