What Are You Worried About?
In May 1995, Randy Reid, a 34-year-old construction worker, was welding on top of a nearly completed water tower in our area. According to writer Melissa Ramsdell, Reid unhooked his safety gear to reach for some pipes when a metal cage slipped and bumped the scaffolding he stood on. The scaffolding tipped, and Reid lost his balance. He fell 110 feet, landing face down on a pile of dirt, just missing rocks and construction debris. A fellow worker called 911.
When paramedics arrived, they found Reid conscious, moving, and complaining of a sore back. As paramedics carried him on a backboard to the ambulance, Reid had one request: "Don’t drop me." (Doctors later said Reid came away from the accident with just a bruised lung.)
He just fell 110 feet and came away with virtually no injuries. And yet, while being carried by two strong paramedics, hoisted just two and a half feet above the ground, he was concerned he might fall. Two and a half feet? Really? I have a feeling Reid was just expressing his also uninjured sense of humor.
But that is so like us. When you think of it, the really big stuff has been taken care of for us. We’ve been delivered from the guilt of our sin, from God’s righteous anger against our willful rebellion against him. We had it coming. But he absorbed what we deserved when he died on the cross. Our greatest need was reconciliation with our creator and he took care of that. He gave us what we desperately needed, new spiritual life, available because of his resurrection. He released us from humanity’s greatest fear: death. He defeated it altogether! He forgave us, released us from slavery, gave us a new and eternal life, and brought us into a parent-child relationship with God….and guaranteed our ultimate home in heaven with the gift of his Holy Spirit!
Then we worry about the mortgage over the pile of deteriorating sticks we will be staying in for a few years, or whether or not we will have enough for a dozen years or so of retirement, or whether or not our dying bodies will remain healthy (they won’t). It’s like we just fell 110 feet with virtually no injuries, and while being hoisted a couple feet in the air, are worried about falling. I wonder if God ever chuckles.
“That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? “And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith? “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need” (Matthew 6:25–33 NLT).