Thought for the Day, 5 July 2008

Rhidian Brook

These are anxious times but what are we to do with our anxiety?

I recently went to have my heart checked out for a life assurance policy. As I drove to the hospital I found myself worrying. Anxieties about my health, about my finances and about my mortality were being stirred up in one big cocktail of concern: what if they discover some defect? What if they refuse the cover? What if they find out that I'm about to die? As the nurse pressed the jellied metal plate to my back, I imagined the ultrasound detecting my innermost fears or suddenly telling me how long I had to live. I tried to calm down: my anxiety was surely increasing the chances of something bad being picked up. 'Relax and breathe normally,' the nurse said, before flipping a switch that enabled me to hear the amplified pumping of my heart valves. At first, the sound of my life-blood coursing through me was disconcerting. Was my whole earthly existence really dependent on this mulchy squelch? It all sounded so fragile. But after a few minutes, an oddly calming thought came to me: this heart of mine had been getting on with its job for 44 years with little help from me. And with that I began to relax and feel grateful for the life this miraculous pump had given me (not to mention the free treatment I was receiving from the NHS. Thank God for every one of its 60 years!).

Right now, the irregular beats of the global economy are causing sharp pains for many people. A great stethoscope has been pressed to the heart of the world and picked up an alarming number of complications. In housing, in food, in petrol, things aren't as healthy as we thought. But the diagnosis is important - maybe even life- saving. The economic insecurity reminds us of something we all already know but prefer to let lie beneath the surface: namely that we're not as in control of our lives as we think and that to cling to this illusion is unhealthy - even deadly.

Jesus's counsel to the worried wasn't: 'next time make better plans' but 'Trust God for your daily needs and let not your heart be troubled. Don't worry about tomorrow because today has enough trouble of its own.' This command not to fret (and it is a command and not a suggestion) is not a piece of careful commonsense; but a statement about reality: we can't control the future but we can live fully in the present.

At its heart lies a vital question: what - or who - do we think is in control of our lives? Ourselves? The doctors? The banks? Can God can look after the small detail of our lives - or do we take on the burden of worry ourselves? We can choose to fear or we can choose to hope but the choice is always a heart issue because the heart is the repository of both.