Trust God; to plan or not

Folks,

This past Sundays Gospel reading was Matthew 6:24-34 – basically Jesus saying; Don’t worry about your life, what you’ll eat or wear. Isn’t life more than food and drink and clothes? Then Jesus talks about the birds of the air – how they don’t sow or reap or gather into barns… yet God takes care of them. Then there’s the famous “Consider the lilies of the field” section, where Jesus talks about how they don’t work or spin (I guess in terms of making wool or something- you know, you have to spin wool in order to use it for clothing), and yet, says Jesus, in all his splendor, Solomon was not dressed as lovely as these flowers are… and yet if God so clothes the plants of the field, which today look so lovely, and tomorrow are gathered up and thrown into the ovens, won’t God more clothe you… Oh you of little faith? So, says Jesus, don’t worry about what you’ll eat or wear. God knows you need these things already. But seek first God’s will, and the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you. Don’t worry about tomorrow – so ends the reading – for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Today has enough trouble of its own!

Well, what do you make of that?

When I was in Chile, dealing with issues regarding my parents- my parents were preparing to move from their place, and with my father’s dementia, he had to be in an elder care place for at least a little while until my mother could get herself settled in the new place. And of course my mother is dealing with her own health issues. So there were a whole slew of things that had to happen. We had to make sure the movers were scheduled, that she had a place to move to, that my father was in a good place, even though it was temporary, and of course all that went into planning such big things.

In my past life I was an Army Intelligence office, and my job was to be the “threat expert”. I was trained to know how the enemy thought, acted, moved, and operated. And myself and the operations guys would “War-game” scenarios… “if you do this, then we (the enemy) would do this”. We would run scenarios like this to plan ahead for as much contingency as we could anticipate. That way we would be as well prepared for as many eventualities as we could.

I say this because I end up war-gaming life-stuff as well. My default more is to plan ahead for certain contingencies I think may happen. Well, in Chile, there were a lot of things that needed to happen, and I started planning for contingencies; what if plan A didn’t work… what could plan B be? I’d tell my mother; “We’ll need to have X, and Y in place before we can get to Z.” and so on. And in my planning I’d try and think through the possibility of plan A NOT working out, so I could then be prepared for plan B… and maybe plan C if needed. Her reaction to me was to say I was such a negative thinker!

“You always think the worst!”

“Well, of course! I don’t want to get caught unprepared – we don’t have enough time to spare as it is, we don’t want to be fumbling around wasting time.”

This is how she saw me – A “negative” thinker

This is how I saw her – “It’ll all work out!”… without a plan thought through ahead of time.

My first reaction to this past weeks Gospel reading was, “Don’t worry, be happy”! Remember “Hacuna Matata”, the Swahili phrase made famous in the “Lion King” movies? [As an aside - I lived in Swahili speaking country in my youth, and I never remember hearing this phrase… could be Hollywood!?!}

Now, contrast all this with another phrase I heard – possible from the British SAS, can’t remember… “Luck favors the prepared!”

Remember the story of Mary and Martha in the Gospels? There’s one scene where Mary is sitting at Jesus’ feet hearing his words, while Martha is in the kitchen cooking and preparing to feed all the people Jesus had brought in. And Martha gets mad! And she complains to Jesus- and he says that Mary has made the better choice since they wouldn’t always have Jesus with them. Who are you more like – Mary, who is more the “live in the moment”, take it as it comes, kind of person… or Martha, the planner, and organizer? We may all have both Mary and Martha in us, but maybe we have a propensity for one more than the other.

Don’t be anxious! Don’t worry! Let tomorrow take care of itself! If you’re more Martha than Mary, that can sure sound very irresponsible! If taken literally, we wouldn’t be ready for anything. How would we get food? Or clothes? Or anything else for that matter? I can’t imagine living like this… leaving so much up to chance.

And yet… Sophie Suah used to say – “God is in control!” She had a tremendous faith! She had a tremendous trust in God’s providence! She had a tremendous trust that God would come through! Did she have worries? Absolutely! Was she concerned about things? Absolutely! But in the midst of that… she still trusted in God’s actions in the world, in her life!

So the question is, what do I get out of this reading? It’s not – “Don’t plan”! Sorry, I can’t live like that. I can’t think not planning is very responsible, especially when I have a family to take care of!

But maybe it’s; when it comes time to fall back on something – what is that? When the chips are down – where do you turn?

There are people I have met over the years who have such deep faiths- my mother being one! Often they remind me their first and ultimate trust is in God! One person I met years ago, in one of our conversations about faith, they talked about praying on their knees, about actually getting down on their knees in prayer. They talked about something personal, about being in relationship with this greater intelligence… and their being on their knees was a way to remind them of their act of trust in God. Until that point, I hadn’t prayed like that in years! Prayer can certainly take on a different tone when your on your knees than when you’re driving in the car.

I’m usually the last one to bed often. And our bedroom and our kid’s bedrooms are all on the same floor. Before I go to bed, I’ll often kneel on one knee right between my two kids bedrooms, and put my hands on each of their doors and pray for God’s guidance and protection for both of them, and thank God for them!

In situations like this, your body reminds you, not just your head, that God is in control – that God is there! There is an early Christian prayer posture called prostration- or laying face down on the ground, symbolically in front of God, in prayer. The Muslim tradition has a very similar posture, where the prayer kneels down, then bends forward to touch their foreheads to the ground. In these traditions, our bodies remind us whom we are praying to.

Do I think Jesus said don’t plan? Don’t think ahead? Don’t take care of your kids? Don’t be responsible? No, I can’t agree with that! That can’t be right!

But I think it is reminding us who often over-plan, who can worry too much, who don’t sleep well thinking about the things that need to get done, who get anxious about what tomorrow may bring… I think Jesus is saying… when you pray, get on your knees, or lie face down (whether literally or metaphorically) and lay it all out for God! Tell it to God like it is – Your worries, your concerns, what you think you need to do, where you think you need to go, etc. Once you’ve done that, Let God help you back up again! And Live… as best you’re able… and with as much life as you can muster… trusting that God will be there!