Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

Matthew 6:25-34 KJV

Therefore I say unto you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or 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? Which of you by worrying can add a cubit to his stature?

Wait

Hold it right there!

“Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature

NIV says: Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to his life abit longer

Good news says: Can any of you live a bit longer by worrying about it

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Some realities may sound harsh but they remain realities. I have been a worrier for a long time (by God’s Grace I am getting over it) Maybe you can relate to this.

“If I call my friend (for instance)and she doesn’t pick up, then I literally sink into the deepest depths of fear and worry, Is she okay, could she have fallen ill, or maybe she was kidnapped, or maybe she collapsed as she was walking, or maybe she was robbed”

If a script writer needed to write and entire episode, they would do so with the worrisome train of thought in my mind.

But wait, does it change anything when one is worried or wallowing in fear. For example if it is indeed  true that my friend is hurt, if I worry does she get any better, if I am overcome by the fear of ‘what if’ does it make her better, does it solve anything really; truth is that it doesn’t, if anything it gets you more stressed out.

It goes without saying that even at the moment of worry or fear, praying about the situation doesn’t look like a lucrative idea at all. Instead worrying about it looks like you are actually solving something when ideally the reverse adds more value.

 I think of it like taking your burdens to the cross and instead of leaving them there you carry them on your back as you leave.

Matthew goes on to tell us:

So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed in one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Yes He said it- O ye of little faith

This isn’t the only time that we see these words. Christ used them a couple of other times

Matthew 8:26, And He said unto the, why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith

Mark 4:40 And he said to them, why are ye so fearful? Why is it that ye have no faith?

One author Tim Lahaye talks about the fact that fear takes away faith

It goes without saying that fear actually does cause you to worry a lot. It lets you live in a situation where you are either living the past, with constant guilt and fear of what if a bad thing happens again (yet you can do nothing about the past. Or you live in a situation where you are constantly crippled by the fear of the future, uncertainty and doubt (yet again you can do nothing about the future-except pray and plan)

And because you are surrounded by fear and worry, you are unable to have faith in what God can do! Yet He can do exceedingly abundantly more than you can imagine

Then there comes a blessed assurance

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. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added to you

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble

To be Continued…