Summary:

1. Worry not about tomorrow!
2. Pay attention to what we have to do today - contentment comes when we think about the grace of God
3. If worry still plagues us, go outside and look at the birds of the air and lilies of the field and see how God has kept all these alive!

As humans, we don’t like uncertainty in our lives and get stressed when we cannot control our environment.

Social scientists conducted an experiment where when you lift up a virtual stone and see a snake underneath, you’d get an electric shock. They were trying to test the stress of the participants. When they first started they had high levels of stress because they didn’t know which stone had a snake underneath. After a few rounds of the experiment, they were able to anticipate which stones had a snake underneath and their stress levels reduced.

This shows us humans do not like stress that comes from uncertainty. Today we are uncertain about many things e.g. we don’t know when we can go back to church. Some friends around us may not have any work to do and don’t receive any pay. We also feel uncertainty about whether we’d be infected with the virus. Actually even before this situation we lived our lives in uncertainty too. Perhaps there wasn’t as much uncertainty so we didn’t feel that much stress. But we cannot deny we will meet with things we don’t expect.

Last year, the speaker wanted to change his job. His previous boss asked if he wanted to join him in his new company. This boss was very experienced. Since the speaker knew him already, he knew it would be easy to work together and that he wouldn’t lose out by joining him. At first he had already decided to go over to his company, but because of certain reasons he did not move. Just 1-2 months after this decision was made, that company ran into a lot of debts due to a bad customer. It was very painful for him and told the speaker, “Thankfully you did not come to join me.” Neither he nor his previous boss expected this to happen. Sometimes we may face such things happening in our lives. We start to worry about our future and are under a lot of stress because we cannot control it. Men naturally worry but we shouldn’t worry above what we need to worry about. Today in our prayer let’s think how we can maintain a heart of peace in these uncertain times.

Matt 6:34
“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

We do not need to worry about tomorrow, we only need to worry about today. We often worry about things beyond today. Jesus tells us not to worry about things tomorrow; focus on what we can do today because we can’t do anything about tomorrow as we have no control over it.

Let’s not worry whether we will still have a job tomorrow or graduate because it’s out of our control and knowledge; just worry about today.

Phil 4:6
What we should do today is to be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let our requests be made known to God. Often in our prayers we will supplicate for things that we want. This isn’t wrong as Paul also tells us to make our requests known to God in prayer. But this verse also tells us one thing we shouldn’t lack in our prayers is thanksgiving. When we think about what we have to give thanks for, we will think about what grace we have received. We have to intentionally think about what grace we have received because we tend to take things for granted.

Some brothers are unable to work because of the virus situation. When asked when they could start work again, one replied, “I don’t know when I can start work again but I thank God I have sufficient savings to tide over this period.” Even though he wasn’t in an ideal state - couldn’t work and didn’t have a salary - he still thanked God that he had enough to be sustained today. We can be content that God has given us sufficiently for our daily needs and can continue to survive.

Phil 4:7
“and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus”

When we have done our duty to pray and supplicate, God will do His part to give us the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. This is a peace that is not the normal peace of the world. This peace will guard our hearts and minds. Interestingly it doesn’t say the peace of God will guard our physical bodies but our hearts and minds.

It tells us that worries about our physical bodies isn’t necessary because it’s not our bodies that doesn’t allow us to feel peace but our hearts. Our hearts don’t feel peace because we don’t know what’s going to happen in the future and we feel afraid.

In our prayer let us keep in mind:

1. Don’t worry about tomorrow
2. Pay attention to what we have to do today - pray and give thanks to our Heavenly Father; we will feel contented when we think about the grace of God
3. If we still feel very worried, like what Matthew says, go outside and look at the birds of the air and lilies of the field and see how God has kept all these alive.

The news during Circuit Breaker show that the plants and animals are thriving! If we go out during phase 2 and look at how the grass and flowers are thriving, even though Matthew says they can be thrown into the oven the next day, it shows God takes care of them, what more us?

Let us keep this in mind as we pray for peace.