FAITH IN FOCUS: PLAN B
Most of us worry from time to time. In these days of financial constraint we wonder whether we will still be in work, still earning a living and still able to provide for ourselves and others. Perhaps we worry about our health or the health of a family member. Maybe we lie awake at night concerned by the behaviour of our children and the type of people they have started hanging around with. Or is our worry completely imaginary? Do we have bad dreams that a meteorite might strike our house, that we will be asked to conduct an orchestra with a knitting needle or walk a tightrope blindfolded over Niagara Falls while wearing moon boots?
Jesus has a Plan B. He tells us that worrying is useless; there is nothing that can be changed by worry. In fact, excessive anxiety belies a lack of true faith. Of course there are going to be things that we have to make provision for and these can sometimes be threatening or daunting, but worry saps faith and leaves us in a paralysed state.
At the heart of Jesus’ Plan B is the fact that when God created us, through the agency of our parents, he did not stop being concerned about us. God’s care for each one of us is eternal. In fact, if God were to stop thinking about us for a single second then we would cease to exist. God the Creator keeps creating day after day. Every morning God continues to sustain us and offer us the gift of life. Jesus puts it beautifully when he says that God provides seed for the birds, grass for the fields, flowers for the hedgerows, and if he does that for flowers, grass and birds how much more will he care for the pinnacle of his creation: men and women?
We can’t add a single day to our lives by worrying about what we’re going to eat and drink or what we’re going to wear. Christians are not preserved from the obvious need to make provision for the future but we are able to live in the secure knowledge that God has not made us to be mere playthings which will eventually be abandoned.
God is not preparing us for oblivion but for everlasting happiness with him. Our faith in God demands trust, trust in a loving God who holds us in the palm of his hand and who will never renege on the promises he has made to us in Christ. There is nothing that can ever happen to us that he will allow to crush us and he will never withdraw his fatherly concern.
Plan B isn’t to forget about the future or not to make sensible provision. Plan B is to thank God just for being our God and for having us as his sons and daughters, and to have that trust in God that makes us know that whatever the future may hold we will never be separated from him. So what’s the use of worrying about tomorrow?
The day after tomorrow, tomorrow will be yesterday.