What makes you worry? Are you worried about your car? Maybe you lie awake at night thinking about your health, your friends, or your assignments for tomorrow. Why do you worry about such things? Because they’re yours! You own the thing, the responsibility, and the worry that comes with it.
Somewhere in the world right now, someone is dodging a tornado, or trying to pay his mortgage, or considering where to send his son to college. Do you care? No. It is not your life, so it is not your worry.
In Matthew 6:24-25, Jesus says, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and body than raiment?”
The more of your life you own, the more worry you own. What if you didn’t always have to be right? What if you didn’t have to know every detail about tomorrow? What if you didn’t have to own the nicest wardrobe, a winning personality, or a stunning intellect? What if you didn’t have to maintain five hundred friends and seven hundred followers?
What if you were a bird? In verse twenty-six, Jesus continues, “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?”
Birds are free; they own nothing. Birds fly; there is no burden weighing them down. If you read Jesus words about the sparrow in Matthew 10:29-31, you are reminded of the following:
• Sparrows don’t buy; they’re sold.
• Sparrows don’t own; they’re owned.
• Sparrows don’t worry; they work.
• God values them, but He values you more!
Have you ever envied a bird? Perhaps you looked out the window and saw a bird flying free. You didn’t envy her for what she had; you envied her for what she did not have. Birds have nothing but freedom because they own nothing but service to their Creator.
So, what makes you work, what makes you worry, and what makes you want? That may well be the thing that owns you! Our possessions determine our problems. If I have to be prominent, comfortable, or appreciated, I am choosing a life of stress and vanity.
A person that must control everything is controlled by everything! Why not give this day, its’ problems, and any glory that may come to you from it to the Lord? The more God owns, the less you worry.