By: Chelsea Volk

"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 how much you need them.. .Therefore do not wony about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6: 31-32, 34

The dictionary definition of the word worry is "Mental distress or agitation resulting from concern usually for something impending or anticipated." As people living in today's world, sometimes we get more than our fair share of things to worry about. We wony about our grades, our clothes, our weight, our friendships, our money.. .and the list goes on and on. And as Christians, we might have even have more worries, such as how to live as God's child in a sinful
society.

In the Bible verses I just read, Jesus is giving his famous Sermon on the Mount when he starts talking about not worrying. It might surprise you to know that in Bible times people worried about some of the same things as we do! And I'm sure that they as early Christians also worried about how to live like a Christian in a world that rejected that type of lifestyle. As you may already know, many members of the early Christian church were persecuted for their beliefs. A lot of them died for their faith too! As awhl as that sounds, modem-day Christians
are persecuted too, even here in America. It's not hard to see why we so often let the devil lead us into worrying!

But do we really have a reason to worry? Not at all! Have you noticed that when you worry, it does not change a single thing about the outcome of whatever you are worrying about? So why worry? It only gives you more stress than you already have! The hymn "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" says "...oh, what peace we often forfeit, oh what needless pain we bear, all because we do not cany everything to God in prayer." Many people can tell you that talking to
God about your troubles through prayer really does make you feel better!
One of my mom's favorite sayings is, 'We'll cross-that bridge when we come to it." She means that she's not going to think about things that might happen until they do happen. I think that this also is a good way to live our lives. Instead of worrying, we should just put everything in God's hands and go on doing the things we have to do. It's God's job to take care of us. He knows what He's doing, so we have no reason to worry. All we have to do is trust in Him.

We pray:
Dear Lord, as we go through our lives, please help us to remember that you are with us at all times and that we have no reason to worry about anything. In your name we ask this. Amen.