Worried and Anxious about Many Things (Okay, just a few, but they seem like a lot)

I am, by nature, a rather laid-back person.  I don’t usually get worked up over things. But lately I have become more and more anxious and worried, and this is beginning to bother me.

As any regular reader of this blog knows, things are always a bit up in the air at the church I serve.  Decades of decline have caught up to the congregation, and finances are an ongoing concern.  I wish I could say that the primary concern at the church was how to bring more people into a relationship with Jesus, but it isn’t.  The bottom line is money, and the lack of it.  Another recent Church Resources Team meeting brought with it news that we are now $20,000 in the red for the year, and this includes monies from lease agreements we have with another church and an alternative school, both of which are using some of our building space.  Recent deaths in our church have contributed to this deficit, since these deaths including several older members whose support of the church was substantial.  The budget is bare-bones as it is (It is only about $160,000 total), so further cuts would seem to be out of the question.  The only solution here is to go to a part-time pastor next July or form a circuit with another Church in order to reduce the single greatest item in the budget:  pastoral support.

In addition to this, my lovely daughter and her mom are moving about an hour and a half further away from me in the coming weeks.  This will reduce, because of the distance and travel time involved, the time I will get to spend with Desiree.  While I am happy for her mom that she has found a good job and place to live, and while I am also happy that Desiree has a better community in which to live (as well as a better school to attend), I am saddened by the fact that our mid-week overnight visits will come to an end.  I will still see her weekly, but our time together will be reduced.

All of this means that I will almost certainly be moving come next June.  It would be good to stay in my current conference (Eastern Pennsylvania), but the fact of the matter is that the closer one gets to Lewisburg in my conference, the smaller the churches become.  It will be hard to find a church much closer to Lewisburg that can pay my current salary and still remain in Eastern PA.  I have already contacted a District Superintendent in the Central PA conference, but they seem to have more than enough pastors at the present time (only transferring in one or two pastors a year).  So while that remains an option, it is one that, at present, does not look all that great.

These things, plus a few more personal items, have made me anxious, worried and troubled.  As I was telling a friend of mine, there is one sure-fire way for me to tell if I am bothered by something:  I begin to chew on my fingernails and cuticles more and more (I know . . . gross), and to be honest, my fingers are getting a little sore.  The problem is that there probably won’t be any solution to any of worries any time soon.  I will probably have to wait until January or later to find out where I will be serving next July, and in the meantime I will, no doubt, have to start wearing gloves.

In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount we read these words:

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing?

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. (Matthew 6:25-34 ESV)

Eugene Peterson, in his The Message, translates verses 30-34 in this way:

“If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

“Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.

I wish I could do that.  I really do.  I’m just too anxious to do it right now.  Pray for me, and pray for others out there (you know you who are) who are facing some very similar worries.