Worry and the Seconds it Adds…(A Meditation)

This past Sunday, the message that was preached was meant for me.
It is cliche I know, but nonetheless, that passage in Matthew chapter 6 when Jesus talks about worry was like an arrow striking its mark. And I was the intended target.

The Pastor could not have known.
No one else around me, save for my wife, would know.
But I have been worrying as of late…
So much so that the worry has boiled over the pot, simmering on the stove…sizzling on the electric coils beneath and foaming all the way into full-on anxiety. It hasn’t been panic attacks per se, but there have been moments when I have awakened at times seized with disquietude and beseeching my quickening pulse to slow itself back into that desired slumbering pace once more.

In those sudden moments of unwanted wakefulness however, I have found myself conversing more and more with God. He and I haven’t spoken as much as we do now. Perhaps this is the ‘good’ that can come out of what was not meant to be so…I do not know. But we speak quite often about these sudden moments of alarm. He reminds me that this is small, unnecessary concern, and that He is, and will always be there.

His steady peace finds my heart once more, and yet it takes more seconds, perhaps even minutes to convince my storm-filled brain. Oh, how I wish I would step out of that boat like Peter, who was full of faith…yet I’m one of the others still in the boat, unwilling to move, frozen in my own silent attack of dread. We often internally chide Peter for not trusting Jesus as he finds his very soul taking on water, all-the-while looking up at Jesus Messiah who stands above that very tempest.

Yet…Peter moved.

He stepped into onto that surface, which defied all sound logic (and physics).

Perhaps it is in the moving of one’s body, mind and soul that we begin to have a little faith…
Perhaps it takes courage to still the very waves of emotions and the currents of anxiety.
I have found that worry and the seconds it adds only fuels the panic and the untamed fright and flight.

The Preacher spoke on worry.
That worry had made a home in my heart.
Today…worry is homeless, and I find myself finally moving again…perhaps very soon, I will step out of my boat and finally walk with Jesus.