Fret Not

Jesus laid it out very well when He said in the Sermon on the Mount, "...do not worry about your life...Therefore, do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?'...So do not worry about tomorrow...(Matthew 6:25, 31, 34)  Risking redundancy, He told us three times that since God is trustworthy, there is no reason to worry.  According to Jesus, worry is about not trusting God to be faithful.  The heart cannot be consumed by God if it is consumed by worry.  These two opposites cannot dwell in the same place.

 

Another place where we hear a Word about worry is in the 37th Psalm.  Three times in the first 8 verse the Psalmist writes, "Do not fret...do not fret...do not fret."  (Verses 1, 7, 8)While the Psalmist correlates fretting with trusting, he also speaks of fretting as something which is caused when we look at the good fortune of the wicked instead of the goodness of God.  As the Word says, "do not fret over those who prosper in their ways...," we are pointed to the fact that we are allowing envy and jealousy to take root in our heart.  In other words, we fret and worry because our life is focused not on God, but on the people and the things around us which are surely out of our control.

 

Whenever we fret, or worry, or allow anxiety to prevail in our life because of others, our living is diminished and our relationship with God is compromised.  It keeps us from the present moment in our life and prevents us from receiving those things which speak of the blessings of God in our life.  God does not fret over the wicked.  Verse 13 of the Psalm says, "...but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for He sees that their day is coming."  No need to fret.  God is still in control.