05
The Root of Fear
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Matthew 6:25-33
Take a moment to think about and honestly evaluate this in your own life. What would you say right now you are most worried, anxious and fearful of? What thought in your mind is most likely to steal your peace and joy?
You may be someone who doesn’t worry about much, or you may see yourself as someone who worries about a lot of things. But if you had to answer, everyone, to some extent, worries about something. Even if you don’t want to worry and keep telling yourself over and over not to worry, it can be a hard thing to strip from your mind.
All worry, fear and anxiety have something in common. They all have their roots in the fear of losing something you currently possess. We possess our health, but we are anxious that we’ll become sick. We have a career, but we fear losing our job and wonder what would happen if we did. We have money, but we fear losing that money and going into debt. We have our reputation, but we worry that we’ll do something to make ourselves look bad and mess up what we have. All fear is rooted in loss. All anxiety is rooted in the loss of something we think we possess. And to make matters worse, often our fears and worries are passed down to our children, and we leave a legacy of worry that continues because we never faced those fears and fought that battle.
The Bible shows us the cure for worry, anxiety, and fear. It’s a simple cure, not easy, but simple enough. We simply need to take God at His word. What would happen if we took God at His word? What if we realized that nothing we have is ours? That nothing really belongs to us and we should not fear losing something because we know we never owned it anyways. Everything we have comes from God anyways, and God can give, take away, and restore again however He sees fit. This realization is potentially life-changing not only for us but for our entire family and the next generation. It is the cure for the epidemic of anxiety and fear which is prevalent in our world today. The more we take ownership of what doesn’t truly belong to us, the more we will fear losing that which never belonged to us in the first place. We can now be assured that the fear of loss is an irrational fear because nothing is really ours to lose.
Jesus addresses this issue of worry and ownership in today’s passage from Matthew. Read the passage again slowly, and think about who the source is and should be for the things we need in life. If God is the owner and supplier of all my needs, then why do I need to worry? It’s only when we wrongly see ourselves as the supplier of our own needs that we are filled with worry and fear. When we choose to put God in His right place on the throne in our lives, then all of these other things our spirit desires will be given to us as well. Knowing God is the source of all things is the foundation a healthy life is built upon.
Let’s be people who leave a legacy of choosing faith over fear and trusting God as the source for all we need!
You may be someone who doesn’t worry about much, or you may see yourself as someone who worries about a lot of things. But if you had to answer, everyone, to some extent, worries about something. Even if you don’t want to worry and keep telling yourself over and over not to worry, it can be a hard thing to strip from your mind.
All worry, fear and anxiety have something in common. They all have their roots in the fear of losing something you currently possess. We possess our health, but we are anxious that we’ll become sick. We have a career, but we fear losing our job and wonder what would happen if we did. We have money, but we fear losing that money and going into debt. We have our reputation, but we worry that we’ll do something to make ourselves look bad and mess up what we have. All fear is rooted in loss. All anxiety is rooted in the loss of something we think we possess. And to make matters worse, often our fears and worries are passed down to our children, and we leave a legacy of worry that continues because we never faced those fears and fought that battle.
The Bible shows us the cure for worry, anxiety, and fear. It’s a simple cure, not easy, but simple enough. We simply need to take God at His word. What would happen if we took God at His word? What if we realized that nothing we have is ours? That nothing really belongs to us and we should not fear losing something because we know we never owned it anyways. Everything we have comes from God anyways, and God can give, take away, and restore again however He sees fit. This realization is potentially life-changing not only for us but for our entire family and the next generation. It is the cure for the epidemic of anxiety and fear which is prevalent in our world today. The more we take ownership of what doesn’t truly belong to us, the more we will fear losing that which never belonged to us in the first place. We can now be assured that the fear of loss is an irrational fear because nothing is really ours to lose.
Jesus addresses this issue of worry and ownership in today’s passage from Matthew. Read the passage again slowly, and think about who the source is and should be for the things we need in life. If God is the owner and supplier of all my needs, then why do I need to worry? It’s only when we wrongly see ourselves as the supplier of our own needs that we are filled with worry and fear. When we choose to put God in His right place on the throne in our lives, then all of these other things our spirit desires will be given to us as well. Knowing God is the source of all things is the foundation a healthy life is built upon.
Let’s be people who leave a legacy of choosing faith over fear and trusting God as the source for all we need!