Are you anxious? Our federal government is in flux in a way we’ve never seen before. The long-term threat of global climate change still looms, and wildfires and flooding seem to be on the rise. (And as Monitor Editor David Lepeska pointed out in “Playing with fire” (July 9), we may be less than fully prepared.)
Perhaps a potential funding loss threatens your continued employment or ability to provide needed services. Do you rely on SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) or Medicaid? Could your benefits be at risk?
Even without these concerns, life is full of uncertainty. Will I be in an auto accident, even if I’m not at fault? Will I fall and break my femur? (Been there, done that.) Will inflation challenge my fixed income resources? Will rising property taxes force me from my current home?
A week ago, I was walking my dog in the early morning twilight when she got excited about another animal in the tall grass. Unfortunately, it was a skunk. My wife and I spent about an hour trying to get her cleaned up and “mitigate” the odor. It was not at all how I expected my morning to go, but life does hold its surprises.
We seek to inoculate ourselves from risk by building some level of certainty and security. A stable job and income. A home. Funds tucked away for our later years. A community of family and friends.
But the best laid plans don’t always work, and every once in a while we wonder, “What will tomorrow bring?” Jesus tells this parable in the gospel of Luke:
“The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’
“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
“This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”
Shortly after this passage, Jesus mentions the people killed when a tower fell: “Those 18 who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no!”
Sometimes we are just in the wrong place at the wrong time for no reason. It’s the randomness of life. The challenges I mentioned in the first paragraph are, for the most part, things we have little control over. Yes, those of us living in a more rural setting can do things around our homes to better protect them from wildfire, and we should. But actually stopping a wildfire should it come our way, well, that’s another story. And being anxious about it is not particularly helpful.
Each day we live is a gift, one we should cherish. We never know for certain whether or not there may be another one. So do your best to set aside those anxieties that weigh you down. If there is a relationship you need to mend, consider mending it while you have the time. If there is a task you need to complete that will relieve a burden in your own life or someone else’s, try to make it happen.
If there are things in your life that make you anxious that you can control, think about what you need to do to alleviate that anxiety. What needs to change? How can we be rich toward God?
In Matthew’s gospel, at the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells the crowd:
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious 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: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”
I know. Easy for Jesus to say. Making it part of our daily lives is no easy task. But today is the day that is before you. Tomorrow will get here soon enough.
Roger Reynolds is an ordained Episcopalian deacon. He lives in Jefferson City.
