Worried about the future?

Happy Sunday,

“Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

Philippians 4:6-7

What about when the news is worrisome?
There’s a piece of pushback I received to an early News Health edition about trusting in God that has stuck with me. It was longer and more thoughtful, but here is my paraphrase: “I’m not worried for myself; I’m worried for my kids’ future.”

I wrestled with this one because… I agree. It's comparatively easy for me to let go of worries for my own future vs. my daughters' futures. If there's an economic collapse, or WWIII, or persecution, or [insert personal flavor of fear], it feels like 1) I at least had a pretty good run at things for a bit, and 2) I can put my head down and handle some hardship; Heaven is coming.

But imagining some major world event robbing my daughters of their opportunity to joyfully learn, grow, get married, find jobs they love, and generally flourish is genuinely scary!

And there's Scriptural support that it's a good thing that I want good things for my kids (Psalm 37:26, Matthew 7:11, 1 Timothy 5:8). 

So, my anxiety for their future is a good anxiety… right? If I love them, I will naturally be anxious for their future… right? And following the news for potentially big scary things that could disrupt their future is important because what if I can do something, anything, to help prevent it?

Here's the problem: Philippians 4 tells us not to be anxious about anything.

Now, I can't exactly just flip an anxiety-for-my-daughters-future switch to "off," but I can re-label that anxiety that I felt was honorable as wrong. I can remind myself that trusting in God doesn't mean trusting him with only my future; it also means trusting him with my daughters' futures. And I can remove "I'm just loving my daughters" as a weak justification for consuming too much anxiety-inducing news.

I'm interested: What are other news-related or news-adjacent things that feel correct to worry about? Hit reply and let me know (I read everything but can't reply to everything).

Jason

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