One Day at a Time

Psalm 23:2

    He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,

Dear Friends in Christ,

I want you to imagine for a moment a couple of rather unlikely scenarios being played out in your home.  The first one involves your 10-year-old who is obviously worried about something.  He’s been having trouble sleeping.  He’s not eating well.  He has a distant look on his face most of the time.  When you finally pin him down and ask him what’s wrong, he shakes his head and moans, “I’m worried about my retirement.”  In spite of the fact that he has yet to even enter the work force!

Or imagine your 4-year-old daughter crying in bed one night.  You quietly walk into her room and ask her what’s wrong.  To which she replies, “I’m afraid.”  “Afraid of what?”  “I’m afraid I’ll never pass college chemistry.”

How would you respond to such statements?  Aside from maybe calling a child psychologist for some advice or an appointment, you’d probably say:  “You’re too young to be worried about such things.  When the time comes, you’ll know what to do.”

Well, fortunately most kids don’t have such thoughts and worries.  Unfortunately, we adults do.  One author I came across describes worry as “the burlap bag of burdens” that so many of us carry around.  It’s a bag that is overflowing with “whaddifs” and “howells.”  You know what those are, don’t you?  “Whaddif it rains on the day of my wedding?”  “Howell I know when I’m in labor and it’s time to go to the hospital?”  “Whaddif I marry a guy who snores?”  “Howell we ever be able to afford sending our baby to college?”  “Whaddif, after all my dieting, they discover that lettuce is fattening and chocolate isn’t?”

Whaddifs and howells.  Sometimes we clutter our lives with so many of them that we can’t think straight.  And don’t even entertain the thought of trying to pass them on to somebody else because I can assure you they don’t want them either.

Oh, the high cost of worry.  Did you know that worry divides your mind?  At least that’s the meaning of the Greek word for worry that is used in the New Testament.  It’s pronounced merimnao.  It’s an interesting word that is actually a combination of 2 Greek words, merizo, which means to divide, and nous, which means the mind.  So worry divides the mind.  It splits our thinking as well as our energy between today’s priorities and tomorrow’s potential problems.  Part of our mind is on the here and now; the rest of our mind is on the then and not yet.

But that’s not the only problem with worry.  Though worrying itself is not a disease, it can cause diseases.  It has been connected to things like high blood pressure, heart trouble, migraine headaches, thyroid malfunctions, and a whole host of stomach disorders.

It’s an expensive habit that might be worth the cost if it worked.  But that’s the problem.  It doesn’t work.  According to Jesus, every one of our frets is futile.  In our Gospel reading before he said, “You cannot add any time to your life by worrying about it.”  Worry has never brightened a day, solved a problem, or cured a disease.

So how can a person deal with worry?  Well, you might try doing what one fellow did.  He worried so much that he decided to hire someone to do his worrying for him.  He found a man who agreed to be his hired worrier for a salary of $200,000 per year.  After the man accepted the job, his first question to his boss was, “Where are you going to get the $200,000 per year to pay me?”  To which the boss replied, “I don’t know.  That’s your worry.”

So the bad news is worrying never works and you can’t farm out.  The good news, however, is that we can overcome it.  And there’s no better place to begin that rather daunting challenge than by examining and taking to heart v. 2 of Psalm 23 where David writes of our Heavenly Shepherd, “He leads me beside the still waters.”

I love the picture David paints of our Shepherd there when he says, “He leads me.”  Please note, God isn’t behind us like some heavenly taskmaster, driving us on, yelling, “Get going.  Move on ahead.”  Instead he is out in front of us, bidding us to come, encouraging us to follow him, clearing the path, and showing the way.  And notice, he leads us beside still waters.  Did you know that sheep are afraid of swiftly moving water?  And understandably so, because for one thing they’re not good swimmers.  Nor are they the most sure-footed of animals.  And if they were to fall into water of any kind, their wooly coat would act like a giant sponge and weigh them down so much that they would most certainly drown.

Consequently, our Shepherd leads us beside still waters, where all of our turbulent fears and worries can be wiped away and be replaced with what the Bible calls “the peace of God that passes all understanding.”

But there’s something else that I want you to note about the leadership of our faithful Shepherd and that is that he gives us what we need when we need it.  You see, one reason we worry so much is because either we forget that or we don’t believe it.  And yet, that is precisely what our Shepherd tells us in Heb. 4:16 where it says, “So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God.  There we will receive mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it.”  Another translation, the New English Bible, puts it this way:  “Let us therefore boldly approach the throne of our gracious God, where we may receive mercy and in his grace find timely help.”

God’s help is always timely.  He reminds me of what most fathers do for their children when they travel by airplane.  Does the father give the plane tickets to his children when they arrive by email and let them be in charge of them until the day of the flight?  Of course not!  Does he give his children the tickets before they leave the house to go to the airport?  Again, doubtful because they might lose them in the car or throw them out the window or drop them as they make their way through the airport.  Rather, he gives the tickets to his children when the moment comes to board the plane.  In fact, he might even position himself between the attendant and his children and place the ticket in the hand of each child as he or she passes by.  In other words, each child receives his ticket when he needs it, and no sooner.

And so it is with our Heavenly Shepherd.  He places himself between you and your need.  And at just the right time, he gives you the help you need.  Isn’t that the message God was trying to convey to the Israelites in our Old Testament reading before when he promised to supply them with manna to eat each day?  He told them to gather only one day’s supply at a time.  And for those who couldn’t resist the temptation to gather more for fear there wouldn’t be any the next day, they would awaken to a jar full of maggot-infested, spoiled manna.

One day at a time was God’s plan for the Israelites.  And it continues to be his plan for us.  Like Jesus said in our Gospel reading before, and I’m going to read this to you out of the version of the Bible known as The Message“Give your attention to what God is doing right now, and 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.” (Matt. 6:34)

As I was thinking about this timely help of God, I found myself looking back over my own life and taking note of the times I’ve experienced this myself.  I remember, for example, how from early childhood on I worried about who my future wife would be.  I even remember proposing to one of my female classmates in 1st grade to get that important matter out of the way.  Sometimes my worries about a future wife led me down paths I regretted later on as I was less than patient with God.  But from early on I always held this concern of mine before the Lord in prayer asking him to lead me to the girl he wanted me to marry.  And finally, at a very low point in my life, he brought me the help that I needed when I needed it the most as I was introduced to Marilyn, my bride of now 40 years.

Another major worry I had when I was little had to do with what I wanted to be when I grew up.  Actually I knew from 2nd grade on that I wanted to be a pastor, but every Sunday when I sat in church and listened to my dad preach, I’d think to myself, “How does he do it?  How does he come up with a different sermon each week and sometimes several sermons during the busy times of the year?”  And I remember worrying about that all the way through grade school, high school, college, and even seminary.  And here I am, 2060 sermons later (give or take a few) knowing God gave me the help I needed when I needed it so that I’ve never been at a loss for a sermon idea for any service I’ve ever had to preach.

Then one more worry I used to have revolved around my parents.  I absolutely dreaded the day when either my mom or dad would die.  And had you told me back then that I would one day conduct and preach the funerals for my mom and dad, I would have called you crazy.  But when the time came back in 2011 when I first lost my dad who happened to die on his 88th birthday and then 10 months later lost my mom who made it to the ripe old age of 92, God was waiting there for me.  And he gave me the strength and help I needed to do both of their funerals.    Was it easy?  No, I’m not going to stand here and try to convince you that it was.  And I’m certainly not going to downplay the profound grief and sorrow I felt at that time and that still bubbles to the surface even to this day because of those losses.  But there was no getting around the fact that there was an extra measure of strength that God gave me at that time to help me through it. He was there for me, just as he promised to be and just as he promises to be for you.  Listen to what has become my favorite verse in the Bible, Isaiah 41:10, where God says: “Do not fear, for I am with you.  Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you, sure I will help you, surely I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

I guess the point I’m trying to get across to you today is that this wonderful Heavenly Shepherd who leads us beside still waters is worthy of our trust.  Though he never promises us an easy road through life, he does promise to lead us through those deep dark valleys, to walk beside us, and to even carry us if necessary.  And he does promise that his help and his strength will be there for us not if we need it, but when we need it.

And if you ever have doubts about that, my friends, I have one and only one suggestion for you.  Go to the cross.  Spend time there gazing at your Shepherd as he takes the punishment for your sin upon himself.  Take note of those 6-inch Roman spikes that his enemies used to affix him to that cross.  But understand that it wasn’t really those nails that held him there.  Rather it was his boundless and matchless love for you.  As many of you have heard me say, your Shepherd would rather die for you than spend eternity without you.  He would rather go through hell for you, which is precisely what he did on the cross, than go to heaven without you.  So that’s what he did.  And because he did, those of you who have placed your faith and trust in him will one day have the privilege of having him lead you beside the still and peaceful and perfect waters that await us on the other side, where he promises to wipe away all tears from our eyes forever and replace them with joy unspeakable, glory incomparable, and peace unfathomable.

Amen.