Sep 21: What, me worry?

Isaiah 37:1-38:22

Galatians 6:1-18

Psalm 65:1-13

Proverbs 23:24

I wonder if anyone else remembers Mad Magazine?  Even growing up halfway around the world, Mad Magazine was good fun.  I loved Spy vs Spy, The Lighter Side and the Don Martin cartoons.  And I remember the face of Alfred E Neuman, the ultimate Mad Magazine logo, with the slogan "What, me worry?"  It's a funny slogan, because worry almost seems a necessary part of life.  After all, who wouldn't be concerned about the future, the present, even the implications and consequences of the past?  And yet, as it turns out, it is the right way to live.  

Hezekiah had reason to worry.  The Assyrians were coming, and they were relentless, merciless and always victorious.  Any man Hezekiah spoke with said as much, a message of "abandon hope!"  Unable to turn to man for help, he did what he first should have done - he turned to God.  And God saved him and his people,putting to death "a hundred and eighty five thousand in the Assyrian camp", and causing Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, to withdraw.  For perspective, that is equal to the population of Stamford and Greenwich combined, as per the 2010 census.  God killed them all in one night, in answer to Hezekiah's prayer for help.  

It is eerie how the NT reading seems to reaffirm the lesson the Assyrians should've heeded....that "God cannot be mocked.  A man reaps what he sows.  Whoever sows to please their flesh, from flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life."  Sennacherib mocked God and reaped destruction.  Hezekiah sought God, and God saved him.  

I still worry a lot.  Just the last couple of days, I found myself worrying once again about my daughter, the effort she puts into her schoolwork, and what her future will hold - basically things over which I have absolutely no control.  How much better to do what Hezekiah did, and present these worries to the Lord, and have Him, who knows precisely what the future holds for my daughter, to handle the situation as He sees fit; how much better to think: "what, me worry?"  For ours is a God who, as the Psalm says, answers prayer, who forgives us even when we are overwhelmed by sins.

Father, forgive me when I doubt, when I take on the burden of worry, in essence saying I am better placed to handle the future than You are.  As the stakes get higher, as they did for Hezekiah, teach me to turn to You rather than to myself.  We pray this in Jesus's name.  Amen.