Did you know that tiny flies can bring down the king of beasts?
The flies, known as "stomoxys," will bite a lion and then keep biting its wounds, inflicting nagging, relentless pain. Over time, the lion dies of trauma. A few years ago, at least six lions in Tanzania's world-famous wildlife park were killed by swarms of these flies.
Our worries can do the same to us. Left unchecked, our anxieties will buzz around us like a swarm of blood-sucking flies, pestering us and distressing us until we collapse.
Maybe we're revealing more than we intend when we sigh and say, "I'm worried sick!"
As the late Corrie Ten Boom once noted, "Worry doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength." That's why Jesus said, "Don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes." (Matthew 6:34, Msg)
In his book, Just Do Something, Kevin DeYoung wrote:
We obsess about the future and we get anxious, because anxiety, after all, is simply living out the future before it gets here. We must renounce our sinful desire to know the future and to be in control....We walk into the future in God-glorifying confidence, not because the future is known to us but because it is known to God. And that’s all we need to know. Worry about the future is not simply a character tic, it is the sin of unbelief, an indication that our hearts are not resting in the promises of God.
Of course, warnings against worry create an interesting phenomenon: We start worrying about worrying!
That means we need more than a reprimand: We need a remedy! And worship is that remedy. That's the subject of this Sunday's message, called "What Happens When Nail-Biters Worship." We'll study Psalm 93 together, and I encourage you to reflect on the text before Sunday.
It's part of our series, "Growing Pains of the Soul." You can catch up with the series at our website.
This Sunday is also "Upward Sunday at Hillcrest." Be ready to welcome visiting families from Upward Basketball (Grades 1-4) and Hillcrest Hoops (Grades 5-6). And be ready to honor all the volunteers who keep this great ministry going!
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