Be Present: It is Finished | "Do not be anxious about your life" Matthew 6:25-34

This week I have found out that my beloved uncle may have suffered a heart attack, I say "may have" because it is currently unclear, and testing has yet to confirm. In this time, I've spoken with the family and encouraged them, and prayed for them.

In talking to my aunt, one thing came up which I thought was worth sharing, it was this:

When darkness shrouds us, when sickness, pain and suffering come to us, and they ALWAYS come to us at some point in our lives, they inevitably bring something worse. What is it?

Pain and suffering bring fear, anxiety and doubt about the future. Fear and doubt about what will happen, "will we die?" What will happen to our family after we are gone? Will it hurt? Will we go to heaven? Is there something beyond this life?

In that desert of darkness, we are soaked is fear and doubt because in that moment we are confronted by our mortality and forced to acknowledge our lack of control over our survival. And once those questions and fears rise in us, the devil is at our ear in a flash. Sewing turmoil by recalling all the worst possible outcomes, so much so, that we lose the beauty of the moment.

How does anxiety about the future cost us the "beauty of the moment"?

It does so by forcing us out of the present, into a future that might be. You cannot simultaneously be "present" and living in the past or future. And when we are anxious about the future, or shamed by the past, we are pulled out of the present by distraction. This sleight of hand is the devil's favourite attack.

Let me say this again:

1. To live in fear of what may come, is to be distracted out of the present by the future.
2. To live in shame, or celebration, over what has transpired already, is to be robbed of the present by the past.

Be Present!

The only right place for man to live, is the now. This moment is all we have. We are not promised 80 years on Earth, nor are we promised tomorrow, so we need to stop living like we are. To focus so hard on retirement we deny our present is to die today. Just as to fixate on the possibility of death one day, from a sickness diagnosed us today, is to surrender to that disease before the fight begins.

The devil is a liar, and he seeks the destruction of all God's children. So of course, he whispers distractions, that would seek to pull us out of God's gift to us, which is of course this moment, the present.

In the same way, we must not be so shell-shocked by what has already happened in our lives, that we lose the present also.

I told my aunt, do not be denied this moment, this day, by worry over this diagnosis, that is the devil's game. Do not let him rob you of the preciousness of today, through either fear of tomorrow, or shame over yesterday. Today is the only day you get, enjoy it.

Matthew 6:25-34 (ESV)

Do Not Be Anxious

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?[a] 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Footnotes:
Matthew 6:27 Or a single cubit to his stature; a cubit was about 18 inches or 45 centimeters