Thanking God in Tough Days
Mathew 6:25-33
Thanksgiving week is coming
up. Some of us will say “THANK YOU, LORD.” Others will say nothing; they will
just take time off work and enjoy a short vacation. Yet others, who lost dear
persons or are suffering life’s hardest experiences, will not find any reason
to thank God or anyone.
Today’s Armenian passage is
about worrying. It is relevant to
talk about worry as we are preparing for Thanksgiving.
I worry. Some of us worry
most of the time. Jesus said that worrying will not change a thing in your life;
in fact, it will make life miserable. “Who of you by worrying can add a single
hour to his life?” (Mathew 6:27).
Let me give a good example about
worrying. A little boy accidentally killed his grandfather’s favorite bird.
Fearing that Grandpa would be angry, he found the best place to hide it. His
sister saw this place. Now he was forced to do everything possible to keep his
sister’s mouth shut.
Every time he did something
against his sister’s will, she said, “Remember the bird…”
After some days of bearing
the burden of worry, the boy could not take it any more. He went to Grandpa and
confessed the whole story. He was surprised by the response. Grandpa said he
did find the dead bird a few days ago.
He added, “I love you, I
forgive you. I wanted to see how long you would allow your little sister to
control your life with the information she had about you.”
The
power of worrying is awful; it can paralyze you. We allow worries to enslave
us, instead of allowing another power to free us: the power is trusting God for
our lives. That power is trusting Jesus when things are not as we want them to
be.
Last week my friend from
Beirut John Sagherian was visiting my family. It was a short visit for a couple
of hours. I told him I was worrying about
Jesus said, “Look at birds of
the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly
father feeds them…see how the lilies of the field grow…. that is how God
clothes them…” (Mathew 6: 26, 28, 30)
This could be misread. Jesus
is not against working and making a living.
He is not against sowing or reaping, or working hard. He has a problem with all
of us who are so much involved in our daily life and its problems, that it makes
us worry all the time about everything. We are under the pressures of life and that pressure makes us worry so much that we
lose the beauty and the purpose of life that God has given us.
Therefore if the worries are overtaking your life, let
God take it over.
If you look to the Greek word of worry is merimna. It means “to worry anxiously.” In this passage,
it is used five times. Jesus is stressing a point.
Worrying anxiously will not
solve anything. Therefore, he gives a solution.
What is it? “But seek first
the
Examine your life this
morning. Is seeking the
Can you thank God this
morning?
We will continue in English.