Worry VS Wisdom
I used to think that Jesus was out of touch with his teachings on worry.
I don’t think it is Christian to be dismissive of Jesus, but I do think it is okay to be honest about our disagreements. God can handle our disagreements. Disagreeing is something that happens in the context of relationship. Dismissing someone is inherently disrespectful and breaks relationships. For a long time, on Jesus’ teachings on worry, I disagreed.
In Matthew chapter six and Luke chapter twelve, Jesus tells his apprentices “Don’t worry.” Just don’t do it. He was telling people who knew what it was like to go hungry to not worry about what they will eat and people who in that moment might have been wearing threadbare clothing not to worry about what they wear.
To me it seemed wildly insensitive and out of touch coming from the Son of God, someone who didn’t know what it was like to lose or to be truly vulnerable to the uncertainties of life.
Was I ever wrong! I was wrong about God, Jesus, and what he was trying to teach us about life and worry.
I thought humans were wired to worry; that it was some sort of super power that allowed us to rise above the other animals. It is the product of the combined powers of our amygdala – the constantly on-guard-for-threats lizard brain – and our prefrontal cortex – the critical thinking, judgment center of our brain. Worry, I thought, is what allows us to anticipate potential threats far into the future so that we can do something about them. In my thinking, anytime something went wrong in life it was because I didn’t worry enough or well enough or with enough information to avoid that particular outcome.
Why would we install smoke detectors if we weren’t worried about house fires? Why would we pay for health insurance if we weren’t worried we could get sick or hurt?
I thought Jesus was telling us to turn off our super power for minimizing negative outcomes in an uncertain world. I thought he was taking a stance against good judgment, being responsible, and long-term thinking
I was wrong. I was confusing worry with wisdom and good judgment.
Worry is meditating on fear. Jesus is trying to teach his apprentices that worry – meditating on fear – is ineffective at protecting or providing for us, it steals our life, and it distracts us from what matters.
Wisdom and good judgment are a different things altogether, and Jesus is the strongest advocate of his apprentices growing and utilizing wisdom and good judgment.
Later in Luke 12, the same chapter where Jesus tells his followers “don’t worry,” Jesus also challenges them to pay attention to cause and effect, to be good observers of reality and make decisions that are most likely to lead to good outcomes. To his agrarian minded culture, Jesus puts it this way:
When you see clouds beginning to form in the west, you say, ‘Here comes a shower.’ And you are right. When the south wind blows, you say, ‘Today will be a scorcher.’ And it is. You fools! You know how to interpret the weather signs of the earth and sky, but you don’t know how to interpret the present times.
In other words, Jesus is saying, you know how to look at the sky and the weather and know what that means for your crops and what you need to do – apply that same wisdom to the other areas of life. Learn and pay attention to how life works and think ahead, use good judgment, and act responsibly with what you’ve been given.
To summarize these two part of Jesus’ teaching in Luke 12 – grow in wisdom about how life works and put what wisdom teaches you to good use, but don’t worry, don’t meditate on fear. Worry is useless and it will steal your life.
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