"What, me worry?" - Devotion for 8/30/07

“What, me worry?” – Devotion for 8/30/07

This morning as I was reading Matthew 6:25-34 where Jesus talks about worry, I got to thinking about this passage in a different way. When I usually read this passage I think about how we worry about food, money, clothes – basic essentials of life, and Jesus reminds us that somehow someway God will provide for us. But today, something else comes to me. “Do not worry then, saying ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’” Today when I read that verse (Matthew 6:31), I think about my sons attending Camp Rockfish this summer.

You see, Jacob is a very picky eater (I have no idea where he gets that from!). Before he went to camp Jennifer and I kept telling him that he was going to have to eat things that he doesn’t necessarily like, but he would need to eat them anyway so that he would have the energy to survive the week at camp. We hounded that poor child before he left for camp because we were so worried about what he was going to eat. The entire week that they were gone Jenn and I worried about him – “What’s he going to eat at camp?” When we picked him and his brother up from camp on Saturday and asked Jacob about the food, you know what he said? “I don’t know – I mostly just ate bread.” For almost an entire week, except for breakfast, Jacob hardly ate anything other than bread. He said he’d look at the food and knew he couldn’t eat it, so he just got some bread. Now breakfast (Jacob’s favorite meal of the day), he really stocked up. But everything else, he basically just ate bread.

We also worried about Aaron that week because Aaron has a tendency to lose things – even things that are right in front of him (Where’s my glasses? “Check your face.”) We were worried about Aaron running out of clothes over the course of the week, so we even went and bought him new pajamas to sleep in (pajamas that wouldn’t have the other kids picking on him for wearing them). As we packed, we gave Aaron clear instructions about what to wear and where to put stuff, and then all week we worried, “What’s he going to wear? I hope he doesn’t lose his stuff.” So, on Saturday when we picked him up, we were a bit surprised to find Aaron in his bathing suit. The reason that was surprising was Aaron hadn’t been swimming since the day before. He slept in the bathing suit (although it was dry at least by the time he went to bed). When we looked at the DVD the camp gave us of the week, we saw several clips of Aaron running around camp wearing his brand new pajamas – in the middle of the day!

There we were that whole week worrying about them. “What’s he going to eat?” “What’s he going to wear?” And ultimately they got through it. I would have preferred Jacob to have made better food choices, and I would have preferred Aaron to have worn his play clothes, but in the end Jacob ate and Aaron wore clothes. Such it is for us in life. Just as God provided for my boys that week, God will provide for us. And our worries will just give us more worry. Worrying didn’t do us a bit of good, but trusting in God did.