Hey everybody, this is Heidi St. John. Thanks for tuning in today. You guys have found me at my little corner of the internet today is Tuesday the 15th of March and today we're going to talk about a topic that we get asked about all the time here at the podcast and that is the issue of worry when Jesus said don't worry about tomorrow. Did he really mean it stick around. I think you're going to be encouraged.

So thank you guys for tuning in today as always we'd love to hear from you. I love the questions that are coming into me here at the podcast so many things on your mind a lot of things on my mind obviously as we're navigating our way through some very very troubling times here in the United States and around the world and one of the biggest issues that we see.

The Rear and it's ugly headache in the culture is this issue of worry. What does the Bible say about worry. How do we know when we're supposed to pull back and take care of our families last week you heard me talk about the issue of discernment and I told you guys it's very very concerning to me continues to be troubling to me as I watch what's happening in the news as I watch what's happening in the Christian community.

You know we were up in in the district here in Washington state doing some campaigning last week and it came up in the car so we were talking about all the different things that are out there in the news and what you see happening in like say for example loud and county I read a story just a couple of days ago about this the school district that called CPS on a dad because he asked questions about bad teachers in his schools.

Do we have things to be worried about in the schools. Absolutely I think I think we can make the case for that 100 different ways from Sunday and then we're reading articles about what's happening in Ukraine and what's going on with Russia and I said hey can we just agree Putin's not a good guy here.

This is not you know this is not like we've got the one righteous guy the one unrighteous guy but we could definitely agree the innocent people are losing their lives last week Putin bombed a children's hospital a maternity center in Ukraine I'm sorry but that's wickedness and nobody is going to ever be able to convince me that that's not bad stuff you know it worries me what worries me is the lack of discernment and what worries me is a continuation of the theme of fear that I have seen in many many believers.

Over the last year and a half in particular so I want to address the topic today because the Bible has a lot to say about worry and in fact we read Matthew 634 you know do not worry about tomorrow Jesus said this in his great sermon on the mount why he said because tomorrow we're worried about itself.

So what does that have to do with putting food away you guys have for me say for a long time I really believe in having a well stocked pantry so that if something happens if there's a supply chain shortage as we're seeing right now we're watching gas prices sky rocketing I told you guys about a month ago I think we're going to see gas prices into the $7 a gallon range and that's going to increase everything from the price of food to the price of travel.

Certainly I'm not going to be going anywhere in the motorhome anytime soon right because it's going to cost me twice over twice what it did this time last year so preparing is good and I've talked about this before about panic is sin and in Matthew 634 this is the third time that Jesus gave his disciples the the command really not to worry and I don't know why he said it necessarily over and over and over again.

The only thing that I can think of is that Jesus knew that as human beings we are prone to worry right what's the first thing that a mom will do when she finds out that her child is sick or she finds out she's pregnant right she worries is the pregnancy going to go all right am I going to have financial issues we worry about our health when we hear about you know rumors of sickness we worry about our safety when we hear rumors of war and the Bible says that this is going to happen but we are called as far as we're going to be able to see the Bible.

But we are called as followers of Jesus to keep our eyes on him it doesn't mean that we don't prepare it doesn't mean we stick our head in the sand it doesn't mean that we disengage and we just have a fatalistic attitude about life and we just say well I guess we're just going to wait for Jesus to return we're not going to get engaged know the opposite is true right we're supposed to be engaged do as much good as we possibly can for as long as we possibly can.

Because the one who loved us first is the one who motivates us to do those things but worry is sin Cory ten boom said a long time ago that worry simply empties tomorrow of its strength that doesn't solve anything in the current situation that we're in but it will empty tomorrow of its strength and Jesus knew this right he knew that we have a tendency to anxiously focus on the future rather than on the God who holds tomorrow in his hands.

And so in this segment of his sermon on the mount Jesus is talking to the disciples about not being anxious he says don't be anxious about what you're going to eat or what you're going to wear.

And these two things represent what the two basic needs that we have is human beings what are we going to eat what are we going to wear where are we going to go right you see people fleeing Ukraine right now by the millions right looking for food and looking for shelter.

And the Lord of heaven's armies reminded us over and over again that we could trust in the Lord he had he says that he hit one of the names that he gives himself is Jehovah gyra our provider right he's the one who provides you guys may have heard me years ago tell a story of me and my husband when God had called us really out into this what felt like to me very very deep water at the time because I was in a position as a mom.

Where I didn't feel equipped to go out and get a job it was the wrong thing to do we were struggling financially we were trying to start this nonprofit organization we felt like God was saying hey there's this thing happening over here this homeschooling thing and really we were kind of ahead of the curve on it right because we saw something then praise the Lord he opened our eyes to something and burned our hearts for something.

But I remember thinking how are we going to survive as a family like how are we going to pay our bills how are we going to you know if we step out onto the water and we do this thing that God asked us to do and I remember at one point my husband and I sitting on the back patio one evening and we're just you know trying to work our way through where we were and where we felt God calling us and Jay said you know I can always go back to working at the church again we could you know there's all.

You know there's all different ways but we felt in our heart that that wasn't what God wanted that he wanted us to do this thing full time and it was just really really scary and I was talking to his mom about it and I said you know Jay's questioning his role as provider and what that looks like and mom said and I'll never forget this is godly woman she said why do you think that Jay is the provider for your family that's the Lord that's that's how God works.

And when we are committed to following the principles of Jesus when we're committed to obedience and we're committed to follow through then we don't need to be distracted and we don't need to be worried because we know that God will provide so we put our confidence in him and we say Lord we trust you we know that you're going to do everything that you said that you were going to do in Matthew chapter six Jesus goes on even more and he challenges the disciples specifically not to worry about what we're going to do.

And not to worry about things that are going to come up in their lives in the future. So he had just got finished teaching them to pray right this is the Lord prayer Matthew 6 11 give us this day our daily bread notice he doesn't say give us this day or weekly bread or our monthly bread right he said our daily bread we're watching friends of ours do this in Ukraine right now they're making only what they need for that day and they're trusting Lord for the following day and this is how it means this is how it looks to walk with the Lord.

When we are serving the Lord we live in the present that's why last week I was so concerned with what I'm seeing coming through social media in particular and into my inbox here at the podcast about people who are just obsessed with what may or may not be happening this takes us outside of what God said keep your eyes on me.

Right he said don't worry tomorrow don't worry about it you know do the birds of the air do that no they don't they just look at today that what's in front of us because he knows that we need to see an example of what it means to live in that way and the birds do it best.

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