Matt's Discourse

“Living in the Fast Lane”

Fresh out of business school, a young man answered a want ad for an accountant. Now he was being interviewed by a very nervous man who ran a small business that he had started himself.
"I need someone with an accounting degree," the man said. "But mainly, I'm looking for someone to do my worrying for me."
"Excuse me?" the accountant said.
"I worry about a lot of things," the man said. "But I don't want to have to worry about money. Your job will be to take all the money worries off my back."
"I see," the accountant said. "And how much does the job pay?"
"I'll start you at eighty thousand."
"Eighty thousand dollars!" the accountant exclaimed.
"How can such a small business afford a sum like that?"
"That," the owner said, "is your first worry."


Worrying—it seems sometimes that is the price tag for being human. We live in a fast-paced society that demands us to give whatever it asks in an instant. To see this, all we have to do is look around us. We have fast food restaurants, instant messaging, phones that can reach anywhere instantly, and credit cards that instantly allow us access to money we may not have on our person. If we are at a restaurant and the waitress is slow to bring us our food, we get frustrated. We also have an unlimited amount of tasks that require a great deal of our time. At work, we have deadlines to meet. At school, we have exams that require our attention at an instant. At home, we have families to feed, bills to pay, and sick ones to attend to. We as humans live in the fast lane.
There are consequences to living in this fast-paced life, however. We are human. We do make mistakes. We sometimes fall short of our goals, lose sight of our dreams, or disappoint the people we love. Such things create pressure. This starts an emotional chain reaction: pressure leads to stress and stress leads to worrying. Not only is worrying bad for our physical heath, it is also poor medicine for our spiritual heath—it can take away the joy we have through Christ and create a great divide between us and God.

Jesus, fully God and fully human, seemed to understand this part of human nature as he gives importance to it in the Sermon on the Mount. Read Matthew 6:25-27; 34. Here, Jesus is sounding a wake-up call across the spiritual divide worrying creates in us. He is commanding us not to worry. Can we by worrying add a single second to our lives? And if God takes care of even the smallest and most delicate aspects of his creation, will he not more so take care of us who are made in His own image? Take a moment and think about all of the worries you have at the present and offer them to God. Jesus says in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Remember, no matter how fast-paced life gets or how much pressure is laid on you, Jesus is there to give rest to those who trust in Him.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, there are so many things in our lives that can cause us to lose focus of you and your will in our lives. God, forgive us for our weaknesses and free us from worry. Renew the peace that can only be found through Christ and help us to always keep our eyes focused on you. Through Christ our Lord, Amen.