Worry
Day 351, Monday, July 28
Luke 11:37 – 12:48
If you’re anything like me (and I suspect many of you are in this sense), worry is a major problem in your life. We can dress it up as caution or preparation or another positive-sounding word, but the fact is that many of us are weighed down by trying to respond to things that will almost certainly never take place.
Jesus is pretty clear about how do respond to worry: just don’t do it.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear…. Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?”
The fact is, worry not only doesn’t add any time to our life, but can subtract time from it through unnecessary stress. And it certainly wastes a lot of the hours we do have.
Today is one of those days when the main reading and the meditation go hand-in-hand especially well.
In the words of Job: “But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you.”

-Rev. Mark Fleming

Monday meditation

Job 12:7-12
“But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?
In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind. Does not the ear test words as the tongue tastes food? Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life bring understanding?

Prayer focus
Lord, we pray that you will give us our daily bread, yet we continue to worry as to where it will come from. Free us from the lack of faith that leads to worry and concern about the things of life you know we need.