Do Not Worry About Tomorrow

Day 27

Do Not Worry About Tomorrow

 

This day a few years ago I was down. Way down. Weighed down by worries and stresses and cataloguing my anxieties in a litany of self pity.

I was making pizza, rolling dough, cutting toppings, listing all the reasons why life was just too hard.

I put the pizzas in the oven and went up to the balcony for a few minutes and stared out at the city lights below as they emerged against the twilight. Breezes gently swayed the palm branches in our Jamaican garden and moths began dancing, evading the hungry lizards. A kestrel sat on his usual telegraph pole silhouetted against the grey-pink sky.

“I suppose my list could be worse”, I whispered to myself, conscious of the struggling people in the city below and the beauty displayed all around for me to see.

I began to list differently.

I began to re-list and remember all the moments in my life where God had been faithful, where His goodness had been evident: from the beauty in the scene right before me, to the kindness and patience God had shown me throughout my life. I began to remember, and breathe again.

Something within me clicked, like the changing of a TV channel. My welling grief ebbed and whirring thoughts calmed. I could see again. Hear again. Feel again… peace.

I had switched lists.

David phoned for a shopping list on His way back home from the city… I messaged it back to him..carrots, lettuce, bread… I returned down stairs where Zoë, our daughter was listing all the possible movies she could choose for her Friday night film choice, Ollie sat beside her, arguing for his list.

We all have our lists, I thought to myself.

David finally returned, as we sat down to eat He said quietly “You look different- feeling better?”. I hadn’t known he’d noticed.

“I changed my list” I said. He looked quizzical. I later explained.

I had been listing all the bad things, hard things, stressful things, but then I had realised that though many of those things were bad and hard and stressful, it wasn’t the only list in my life. There was another list also. I just needed to choose which list I’d live in.

After dinner and the movie, at the end of the day, David (tired after a busy day) began getting worn thin… “It’s late, I have to be up early, the yard needs clearing and we have someone coming tomorrow..”

“now you’re making a list” I smiled.

He paused, smiled back “yes, and I’m thankful for my wife, my kids and our life together…”.

He switched lists too.

And this is the thing with all the fret-full lists we make… we make our lists and then our list make us. These anxious catalogues we create re-create our sight and shape our vision of the world all around us, and we live there.

But there is always more to the story than our one anxious list. There’s always another list possible if we are open to seeing it.

Acknowledging the truth of hardship and the struggles we are facing is really important, but letting it define our whole reality is faithless… not faithful. When we feel to see, we fail to see beyond the myopic whirring of our worries. We fail to see God’s face and hear His voice.

Our anxious feelings will create worlds around us and project fretful realities onto the canvas of all we see. And we will live in these half-the-picture realities rather than including the whole picture in our perspective… the whole picture which includes God’s faithful presence with us in every stressful situation we face.

There is always another list that can be written. The list of God’s presence with us. The list Jesus pointed his listeners to on this hillside…

“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?” (Matthew 6:26)

“See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.” (Matthew 6:28-29)

“If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?” (Matthew 6:30)

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33)

Finally ending His list with…

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34)

Look outside the lists you construct in your head to the beautiful world God has faithfully created and the beautiful reality of His presence with you, now. In this moment.

Tomorrow will be no different, He will be there also.

Our worries take us away from being present in the moment with one another and with God. Our racing minds remove us from the five-senses world around us. Our anxiety-lists expect stress and so create it.

Faith in God’s faithfulness creates a different kind of list. A faith-filled list that projects new worlds of hope around us and within us. Brave new worlds of courage and trust. The world of God’s Kingdom advancing, the list of all the ways He loves us and can be trusted, even in the midst of our struggles and worrying moments.

We can live in the story our anxiety-lists write or we can live in the story of His kingdom and His endless faithfulness. But we can’t live in both.

Sometimes we just need to switch our lists. 

 

 

Journaling the Journey

What future situations, relationships, problems and people are currently weighing on your mind? Make a list.

Pray into each one and as you do place each one into God’s hands and let go.

Now. What can you do to be fully present with God today, here and now?

 

Today’s mountainside photograph was taken on Sugarloaf Mountain in Wales, UK.