Friday, December 16, 2005
On Gratitude
Challies had an interesting piece yesterday on the role of worrying in his life -- and his overcoming it. Interestingly, Tim's experience and mine in starting our businesses are not that dissimilar, though I started mine a whole bunch more years ago than Tim.
My story really is just like Tim's - client calls coming almost immediately on the heals of losing that which came before, words of assurance from friends and books coming at the moment most required -- things I cannot conceivably take any credit for. That stuff just has to be from God. And now I am worried I can't get all the work done! I am a weak soul.
I have attempted to train myself to respond to worry with gratitude - when worried to take account of the manifest blessings I enjoy.
Mere minutes after returning home and sharing the news [that he'd been laid off] with Aileen the phone rang once more and this time it was a friend calling to say that their company needed a new web site and someone who could contract with them to manage their network. And just like that my company was born.Given the extra years I have on Tim, I have moved from lack of want to actual abundance, and yet I still struggle with worry as Tim does. As we all know, the more we have the more we are afraid to lose it -- and the bigger the nut we have to crack every month. Tim says he overcomes worry by recognizing its uselessness
That was almost four years ago. I began the company without money and without loans. Since that time we have never lacked for anything important.
Worrying is a dead end. There is no benefit to worrying. Worrying does bring about various effects, but never the desired ones. Worrying brings physical and emotional infirmity, it damages interpersonal relationships and, for more seriously, separates us from the Lord. It brings about no benefit. I am thankful that God has helped me to see the wisdom of Job - the wisdom that opposes worry. "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." I have surrendered to God's control, to God's providence, and trust that there is nothing to worry about.To Tim's point I wish to add another -- worry, particularly about finances, is a symptom of ingratitude for what God has provided. The material abundance that God has provided me is stunning -- consider just the Baltic Sea cruise my wife and I enjoyed this past summer - those things, particularly as nice as that one was, do grow on trees. In such abundance, when I worry, I tell God that that abundance did not come from Him, but from me.
My story really is just like Tim's - client calls coming almost immediately on the heals of losing that which came before, words of assurance from friends and books coming at the moment most required -- things I cannot conceivably take any credit for. That stuff just has to be from God. And now I am worried I can't get all the work done! I am a weak soul.
I have attempted to train myself to respond to worry with gratitude - when worried to take account of the manifest blessings I enjoy.
Matt 6:25-34 - "For this reason I say to you, do not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor for your body, as to what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body than clothing? "Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? "And which of you by being anxious can add a single cubit to his life's span? "And why are you anxious about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory did not clothe himself like one of these. "But if God so arrays the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more do so for you, O men of little faith? "Do not be anxious then, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'With what shall we clothe ourselves?' "For all these things the Gentiles eagerly seek; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you. "Therefore do not be anxious for tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.That Jesus guy was pretty smart!
