CONSIDER THE LILIES

“Jesus said to His disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing… Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.’”  (Luke 12:22,23,27 NRSV)

As we go through life, each of us is taking a notebook of memories, whether we put our notes on paper, or only on the pages of our mind. As we write, it is important that we note down some little things each day for that time when those notes may be our highest joy. So note the day the lilacs bloomed, the day your little son picked a dandelion for you, the day the bluebirds found the house you made for them. In this age of bigness, the big things will crush us if we forget the words of Christ who said to consider the lilies of the field, and do not worry.

-- Unknown, from a church bulletin

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WORRYING ABOUT THE LITTLE THINGS

“Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to Him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?”  (Matthew 6:26,27)

When we are immobilized by little things -- when we are irritated, annoyed and easily bothered -- our (over-) reactions not only make us frustrated but actually get in the way of getting what we want. We lose sight of the bigger picture, focus on the negative, and annoy other people who might otherwise help us. In short, we live our lives as if they were one big emergency! We often rush around looking busy, trying to solve problems, but in reality, we are often compounding them. Because everything seems like a big deal, we end up spending our lives dealing with one drama after another. After a while, we begin to believe that everything really is a big deal. We fail to recognize that the way we relate to our problems has a lot to do with how quickly and efficiently we solve them.

-- Richard Carlson, Ph.D., in “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff… and it’s all small stuff”

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