by Marilyn Ehle
“Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matthew 11:29-30 (The Message)
During the latter years of her life, my sweet mother-in-law experienced the condition common to many older people: loss of her short-term memory. While it was sad for us to see her diminished capacity, there was a positive aspect to this condition: she could no longer remember things that she formerly worried about! Her sleep was now relatively unbroken as the circumstances of the day just past, the often complex lives of her children and grandchildren, and world events no longer occupied her mind to the extent that she lay awake.
The Bible is filled with instructions about worry and anxiety: Do not worry about your life…do not be anxious about anything. Our heads tell us not to give in to the temptation to worry; we know that worry accomplishes nothing, even that anxiety has detrimental effects on our physical, mental and emotional health. We may even know that our inclination to worry is simply an evidence that we think we have control over life.
While we want to grow in obedience to God’s commands—which we know are for our ultimate well-being—I love the words used by Eugene Peterson in the paraphrase above: “Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace… Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly. What a delightful description of a life increasingly without worry! Acknowledging Jesus at our side as we face all those “worrisome” situations of life, and then imagining how He would live in those circumstances will take us a long way to living “freely and lightly.” And sleeping well, too.
You can comment on this devotional online at:
http://thoughtsaboutgod.com/blog/2010/09/28/me_forgot-to-worry/
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