By Basilea Schlink
Worrying is a problem that most people have. Worries come when we think about the future. Let us consider an example. If a father becomes sick and has not yet provided for his children, worry begins to take hold of him. What will become of the children, if the illness gets worse? Who will take care of them? Or there are threats of war or riots. Or there might be monetary inflation. Then we begin to worry about whether our savings will decrease in value, whether we will have a steady income, or whether we will lose our security.
Or we begin to worry about our children and how they are growing up, especially if they begin to do things of which we do not approve. Or worries may arise due to marital problems. Whether it be in physical or spiritual matters, in public or personal matters--the more variety modern man seems to have, the more variety his worries have.
Because our well-being, and the well-being of our families, is never completely secure for the future, we are never secure from attacks of worry. Usually we feel sorry for ourselves, because we think we have so many things to worry about and they irritate us.
But Jesus says something different about worrying. Jesus says that worrying is the business of the heathen. Worrying grows out an unchristian attitude (Matt. 6:32). Therefore, worrying is a sin. Why? Worrying means that our hearts are not rooted in the Kingdom of God and we do not seek it above all; we do not have God in the centre of our lives. We do not seek the Kingdom of God, because we are not captivated by it. Rather we are captivated by things that are more important to us; a steady income, good health, recognition, well-being of body and soul for ourselves and our families. These are the centre of our thoughts.
But this cannot stay that way. For then God will say that we belong to the heathen, who do not know a living God, and are not His own, His children. If we are influenced by the spirit of worrying, the reason lies in our disbelief, in our discouragement. We worry, because we do not believe that God as a Father will take care of us. But when Scripture tells us about the cowardly and the faithless, it says, "their lot shall be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death" (Rev. 21: 8). So at all costs we have to overcome our spirit of worry so that the enemy will not have a right to claim us. Not only for the sake of eternity, but also for the sake of our peace of mind here, we have to be freed. It is not the actual needs and sufferings, but rather worrying that brings sorrow into our lives. That is why we have to get to the bottom of this matter and find out what is the root of our worrying in order to ask how we can overcome it.
The root of worrying is our fear of the cross. Worrying is nourished by the fear that we can lose some of the benefits we possess for body or soul, security or comfort. Then we would have to suffer-and we cannot commit ourselves to this suffering. We want to protect ourselves from the difficult things that lie ahead of us. So our worrying thoughts centre around how we can avoid the difficulties.
In our pride we often think we can master our lives alone, independent of God's help. When we come to the end of our possibilities, our worries, nourished by our fear of suffering, begin to captivate us.
