Worry is Atheism

Last few weeks I talked about getting to know the real Jesus, the human Jesus that we can relate to as humans. When it comes to relating to Jesus, most people say, we can pray to Jesus or we can accept Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior, but very few people would say, we can imitate Jesus. That is considered beyond our capacity, because we are weak and sinful.

So the most prominent images of Jesus in our minds are, Jesus as savior, Jesus as Lord, Jesus as son of God, etc. We rarely think of Jesus as someone who asks a lot of questions. In fact there is a book about it. Jesus Is the Question : 307 questions he asked and the 3 he answered, by Martin B. Hopenhaver. Today I like show you how we can get rid of our anxieties and worries by paying attentions to some of the questions Jesus asks.

But first a story to show how worry is so unnecessary:

There are only two things to worry about:
Either you are well or you are sick.
If you are well, there is nothing to worry about;
but if you are sick, there are two things to worry about:
either you will get well, or you will die.
If you get well, there is nothing to worry about;
if you die, there are only two things to worry about:
either you will go to heaven or to hell.
If you go to heaven, there is nothing to worry about.
But, if you go to hell you’ll be so busy shaking hands with friends you won’t have time to worry…

On a scale of 1 to 10, ten being the most worried, and one being least, how worried are you in general?

My number used to be very high…but I am at a point in my life now, I have no worries…I will share with you how I did it and how you can too.

I did it through a psychological and spiritual approach. If you think about it, worry is always about the future. We worry about what might happen tomorrow or next month or next year or years from now. For example I have a friend who is so worried that he won’t have enough money for retirement…and he is anticipating retirement in the year 2042!

What I have realized is that most of the things we worry about never happens. Five hundred years ago, French philosopher, Michel de Montaigne said:

My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened.

There’s a study that proves it. In this study, subjects were asked to write down their worries over an extended period of time and then identify which of their imagined misfortunes did not actually happen.

It turns out that 95% of what the study participants worried about never happened. This means that 95% of what you worry about is not much more than a fearful mind punishing you with exaggerations, misconceptions, fearful fantasies. That is why Italian Philosopher Seneca said:

We suffer more in our imagination, than in reality.

The root meaning of the word worry is “to strangle.” Imagine somebody physically strangling you. You will be gasping for air and your body will tense up. Living with worries is something like that. When life gets you by the throat it is worry that is doing the strangling.

Worry is no joke. The stress it creates can cause serious health problems. When we become anxious and stressed out, the stress hormone called cortisol is dumped into our blood stream. Imagine sewage being dumped into a clean river. That is what happens when we become anxious and stressed out. Repeated dumping of cortisol into our body has been linked to high blood pressure, heart disease cancer and premature aging. Too much cortisol in our system makes us irritable and impatient which can create relationship problems, and family dysfunction.

Worry and fear are emotional cousins. They belong to the same family of life-draining, joy-killing, peace-zapping emotions. Fear fuels worry and worry creates fear and we are in this never ending loop of emotional roller coaster ride. From a spiritual point of view, I refuse to live in fear because that would be such a slap on the face of Jesus who tells me: Be not afraid. What kind of discipleship is that says, “I trust you Jesus, but then, I am afraid?”

Jesus does not want you to worry. In fact, he repeatedly says that you shouldn’t worry. He tells us not to worry by asking a series of questions.

It is telling that Jesus’ longest discourse on a human emotion is about worry. He could have talked extensively about sadness, loss or grief. Or he could have talked at length about positive emotions like love, peace, happiness etc. But his longest discourse is about worry.

Because we worry too much. We live in an age of anxiety with everything going on around us: natural disasters, terrorism, gun violence, mass shootings, you name it there are plenty of things to be worried. We just observed the second anniversary of the Parkland shooting two days ago. Parents with kids in school are definitely anxious these days.

The Corona virus is reason for worry for many people. Add to that all your personal concerns and worries and you may be going through some tough times in your life.

But Jesus says do not worry: Read Mt 6:25–34)

25 “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? 26 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? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 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? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Three times in this passage he says: Do not worry. But here is the problem. If you are really worried about something, does it help if someone says: “Don’t worry about it”? Probably not. Let us say you lost your job and I say, do not worry, it is not going to help. My intention is to comfort you, but I have no power to eliminate the cause or your worries.

So why is Jesus saying it three times?

The power of Jesus’ teaching about worry does not come from it repetition. According to the author of Jesus is the Question I mentioned above, the power comes from the 5 rhetorical questions he asks in quick succession.

“Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

“Are you not of more value than the birds of the air?

“Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”

And why do you worry about clothing?”

“If god so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you — you of little faith?

Rhetorical questions are not like regular questions. They require you to ponder deeply and then you will come to an obvious conclusion that your worries don’t have legs to stand on, in reality.

I recommend that you spend an entire day meditating on each of those questions this week. Five days of intense meditation on each question will help you reduce your worries greatly.

I also suggest that you spend some time outdoors this week and sit in front of a plant or a field and just observe their minute details. Jesus says “consider” the lilies. Considering something takes time and attention, as opposed to the casual glancing of things around us. Jesus is asking us to to pay attention the so called insignificant things God has created and sustained, and make a leap and consider how much more important and valuable you are as a son or a daughter born of God.

According to E. Stanley Jones, a great missionary and author of the 20th century:

Worry is atheism.

All of you are believers. None of you are atheists, right? But if you worry too much, you are being an atheist, because it means that you don’t trust God enough.

Think about that! When we worry, we are saying that there is no God, or at least not a God who cares enough.

So when Jesus asks, “Why do you worry?” I think Jesus is rebuking us for not trusting God enough .

Let us pray for deeper trust, stronger faith, and total surrender to God.