My favorite verse
I became a Christian in Feb of 1998. In early March of 1998 I established that if I was going to be a Christian then I needed to read the Bible. I owned a bible but it was a KJV version and I was having a hard time with some of the language and while reading in James and came across the phrase “superfluity of naughtiness” I decided that it was time to try a different version. The next day I went to Wal-Mart and bought an NIV study bible. I was in community college at the time and I would get up at 7 or so every morning and take my sister to school as most of my classes were afternoon/night classes. When I got back home I would take time to read the Bible.
I first approached it like I would any other book and started with Genesis. I got through all of Genesis and then got lost in the desert of Exodus and didn’t make it much further. I tried just flipping to a random book/verse at times and that was not super helpful either. Then I tried reading just the New Testament. I got all the way to Galatians but couldn’t remember hardly anything I had read and found that immensely frustrating. So I started over at Matthew again this time praying before I read. Reading slowly and taking notes. While the above process was across several months things started to stick especially the Sermon on the Mount.
Matthew 6:25-34“25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry 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? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”
One of the first verses I memorized as a Christian was this
one. Matthew 6:33 “ But
seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall
be added to you.” One of my favorite
sermons that I have preached was on Matthew 6:25-34 talking about the provision
of God and our needless worry about future events. The reason this is one of my
favorite verses is because I have to preach it to myself EVERY SINGLE DAY. This
is due to the fact that I like to worry.
I worry about all sorts of things. I worry about being a
good father/husband. I worry about my career both in IT and in ministry. I
worry about the church. I worry about your problems. There’s a lot of hurting
people out there. The enemy prowls around our church land community looking to
destroy our unity and undermine our Godly leadership at every turn. Are we
doing enough? Are we doing to much? I
worry about my problems. I worry about my family. Does my wife know how much I
love her? Am I putting her needs first? Are there things she wants/needs from
me that I am too stubborn to realize/admit? Am I open to her concerns or do I
get defensive? Am I doing enough for my kids?
Am I pointing them to Christ? Are they being educated properly? Am I spending
enough time with them? Am I letting them eat too much sugar? Are they learning
the right lessons from?
I worry about
finances. I worry about how I handle my money, how I handle my mom’s money, I
worry about my kids paying for college. I worry about being broke when I
retire. I worry about making next month’s mortgage payment. I worry about
taking my family on vacation. I worry about the landscaping in my yard. I worry
about leaving my IT career for full time ministry and I worry about not doing
it as well. I worry about asking for
help and I worry about not asking for help. I worry about my sin, my
stubbornness and my pride. I worry that God is using the difficult
circumstances in my life to punish me for not perfectly obeying him on some
point. I worry that I will get to that
point in my life where I have so ignored, offended, and abandoned God to the
point where when I ask for help there is no longer any reply because I have
exhausted his grace. Maybe you worry about similar things.
What a worry wort you say. Yup. Now part of it is the way my
mind works. I have the ability to see multiple outcomes for a given situation. So
not only do I have a contingency for plan A &B, but way beyond.
Leverage S1E1
Hardison: Going to plan B?
Nate: Technically, that would be plan G.
Hardison: How many plans do we have? Is there,
like, a plan M?
Nate: Yeah. Hardison dies in plan M.
Eliot: I like plan M.
While this helps a ton in being prepared for any given situation it has it's drawbacks as well. Being able to visualize multiple outcomes, most of which are negative, causes worry. Planning for multiple outcomes helps give me a feeling of control, seeing what I consider “train wrecks” approaching and no one listening to me and/or not being able to do anything about it frustrates me immensely and increases my anxiety levels dramatically. My anxiety levels can rise to the point where I don’t eat, I can throw up at any minute, and I can’t get any sleep. It’s hard to focus on other tasks and I become more irritable than usual. Usually around this point I realize that I need to trust in the Lord as He has delivered me from everything else in the past 34 years He hasn’t forgotten about me this time. So I read Matthew 6 again and I hear the Lord saying to place this burden with Him and trust Him to work in these situations regardless of their outcome. It’s a difficult lesson and I’ve had to learn it over and over again for the last 16 years. Yet, the Lord is patient and gracious towards me as always and I trust in Him. Remind me of that the next time you see me freaking out over something.
Glen
