Anxious Grasping

Yesterday, during our Communion service for the Arlington District Clergy meeting we heard a scripture read and were asked to silently reflect on it and then share what words we particularly remembered and what effect does the reading have on it we think, do or believe. The reading was from Luke 12:22-31. Normally, I would have pulled the text up on my iPad to read along with, but I just listened to it. It’s familiar words spilled over me, “do not worry.”

I heard the admonition in two areas—first, the church—all of it: our congregation, the district, the conference and the general denomination; and second, my own life. When I worry, or am anxious, I am more likely to grasp hold of something, clinging for dear life. Unfortunately, when I grasp hold I tighten down and am less open to receive the gifts of God’s Spirit. It’s hard to have enough open to receive when it is clinched tightly to something else.

As the Church looks at the decline of the last 45+ plus, the tendency is to clutch at something, anything just in order to survive. That clutching hold is usually out of fear. What if God is calling us to be the Church in a new way? What if something needs to die in order for the power of resurrection to be manifest?

And as I look around my house and see all that still needs to be done, feeling all the responsibility resting solely on my shoulders, I hear Jesus telling me to open my hand and receive.

In both areas, I don’t know what it is that is around the corner, but I do know that God is already there so I don’t really need to worry and be afraid.