Daily Devotional - Calm Down and Lighten Up!

Do not worry or be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have worries and anxieties of its own. Sufficient for each day is its own trouble.
—Matthew 6:34

My personal definition of anxiety is mentally leaving where you are and getting into an area of the past or the future. One of the things we need to understand is that God wants us to learn to be "now people." Too often we spend our time in the past or the future. We need to learn to live now—mentally as well as physically and spiritually. There is an anointing on today.

In John 8:58, Jesus referred to Himself as I AM. If you and I, as His disciples, try to live in the past or the future, we are going to find life hard for us because Jesus is always in the present. That's what He meant when He told us in Matthew 6:34, Do not worry or be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have worries and anxieties of its own. Sufficient for each day is its own trouble.

Jesus has plainly told us we don't need to worry about anything. All we need to do is seek the kingdom of God, and He will add to us whatever we need, whether it is food or clothing or shelter or spiritual growth (See Matthew 6:25-33). We don't need to be concerned about tomorrow, because tomorrow will have problems of its own. We need to concentrate our full attention on today and stop being so intense and stirred up.

Calm down and lighten up! Laugh more and worry less. Stop ruining today worrying about yesterday or tomorrow—neither of which we can do anything about. We need to stop wasting our precious "now," because it will never come again. The next time you are tempted to get anxious or upset about something—especially something in the past or the future—think about what you are doing and turn your mind to what is going on today.

Learn from the past and prepare for the future, but live in the present.