A woman spent her entire life as a worrier. As a small child, she sat in her father's lap and would momentarily lay aside her fretting. He would take his thumb and smooth the wrinkles on her forehead. "Now, keep it smooth," he would say. "Don't let it pucker again." But it seemed to help little. Now, as a grown woman facing the final days of her life, she confessed with no hint of irony, that it worried her that she had been such a worrier all her life. I find myself, too often, like this woman, failing to see the futility of my worries. 

In Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, there are many places where reacting with a sense of worry doesn’t seem inappropriate. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not murder.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Or, you have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that anyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery.” (Matthew 5.21-30) 

Wow! Can anyone be acquitted in the kingdom Jesus describes in this sermon?  For worriers, there seems to be ample material for worrying, but this is exactly what is so startling about Jesus' words about worrying. Those words come strategically placed in the middle of his sermon. In between an exhortation to be perfect and a description of the narrow gate, He proclaims gently, but intractably, "Do not worry!". To those trembling with the fear of certain failure, it is an impossible and strange command. Yet, it is one over which He declares…it is my life, my words, my work that makes all things possible. 

Jesus says: “Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look 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? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” (Matthew 6.25-27)

Worrying is like picking up the weight that Jesus has removed and deciding to carry it around again, causing injury with our refusal to set it down. If it is truly "for freedom Christ has set us free" (Galatians 5.1), we can surely stand firm, not letting the shackles of worry burden us again. What if we can approach life's worries with the thought of building hope and even faith, growing closer to the God who lifts the burden? What if it is a matter of letting go, taking the weight we would carry again and laying it before the Cross? What if the only benefit of worry comes in lifting it up and setting it before the God who will hold it?

Of course, I realize this is much easier said than done, but perhaps it is a reminder akin to Jesus pausing in the midst of his weighty sermon and smoothing the wrinkles on our foreheads. Over each weight and worry, He repeats the resounding benefit, I will give you rest. 

~ Pastor Mullinax