Worry Is A Roaring Lion

“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?
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?”
Matthew 6:25-26

Because we live in a fallen world and have seen the miseries common to man, therefore we worry. But worry by nature takes God out of the picture. Worry assures us that this or that might happen to us, so we worry. First of all, worry does absolutely no good and second, it is sin because God has told us NOT to worry.

vs 31-32
“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’
or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
For after all these things the Gentiles seek.”

There is a difference, a great difference, between the believer and the people of the world. We’re talking about two entirely different kingdoms. In the world, you’d better worry because this or that or the other might happen, and if it does, you’re on your own.

But for those who have been brought into the Kingdom of God, it’s an entirely different matter. Here, you are NOT on your own. Nothing comes into or goes out of your life except what is allowed by your Father in heaven. If he allows trial in your life, then he has a purpose for it, and it will be the greatest setting for him to reveal more of himself to you. It will be a setting in which needed growth will take place in you, and a setting that will build your faith as you experience his presence in your life and are taught about the failure that worry is. Your confidence in HIM becomes established in you.

vs 32:
“For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.”

You are never alone. In every place and in every story your God is present. Whether you “feel” him or not he is there. He knows your needs better than you even know them yourself.

If you journal and commit to memory all the stories wherein God made himself obvious in your life, you’ll begin to realize all he has had to prepare in advance in order to see you through, and that alone will open your eyes to his trustworthiness. Consider those stories, how he worked them out with his fingerprints all over them. Furthermore, he has promised that if you seek FIRST his Kingdom and his righteousness, if you seek HIS plan for your life, then your sustenance is guaranteed.

vs 33:
“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
and all these things shall be added to you.”

Pray with me:
Father, I confess the sin of worry. I realize it is an insult to you, the suggestion to my mind that I will be left alone to fend for myself because you will not be sufficient to bring me through. I know that worry is part of our fallen human nature; it’s a big one, Lord. I ask you Father, to become so real to me that worry will vanish. It’s not that you will spare us from all harm, but it is that you will actively walk us through whatever happens in our lives. Convince me Father, that I can safely trust you no matter what. In my heart of hearts I know that, but “Satan comes as a roaring lion” and his roar can terrify me. I don’t have it within myself to stand strong and not fear, so I’m asking for your grace, your enablement to put all my trust and all my confidence in you knowing that you will never leave me nor forsake me. Father, grow me up in the faith, for your Word says that without faith one cannot please God. It’s that faith you’re after, and I surrender myself and my situation to you asking that you make that faith a rock in me, a foundation that can never be moved.