Age of Anxiety

When we are taught history, we are often taught about different ages of men. Often the ages are identified by a certain material or invention. For instance, we identify certain periods as the stone age, the bronze age and the iron age.

I don't think it would be much of a stretch to classify the last 100 years in a somewhat similar manner. The age that we are living in now could be called the computer age but I believe there is an even more fitting title. We live in the age of Anxiety.

Everything about the way things have changed in the last 50-100 years has served to speed up our lives. We went from the popular form of transportation being draft animal or foot to automobiles that travel so fast we set limits for safety. We have moved from communication being a pen and paper to carrying phones with us at all times because we might "miss" something. We have gone from choosing a vocation that suits our life to forming our lives to fit our vocations.

We sometimes pause and look at the way life was 100 years ago and think, "how did people manage back in those days." It would be interesting to see people that lived a 100 years ago react to how we live today. I imagine their comments would mimic our own.

There is no doubt that those who laid the foundations of our society were hard workers and found themselves under stress. But our society has taken stress to an insane and unsafe level. We look at a day with 24 hours and try to squeeze in 27 hours worth of activity. We tell our selves if we multi-task we can make it work.

In an attempt to get ahead in social and business dealings we shave off family time, we surrender any semblance of down time and we commit, commit, commit until we find that we are about to commit ourselves to an asylum.

God desires that we work hard and that we give a fair accounting of ourselves at work. However, I don't think that God ever wanted us to get to this level of anxiety where we become anxious and can't step away from our phones and faxes and computers. God's desire was not that we live for our jobs, but that we live for him.

Matthew 6:25-27
25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

If we become so absorbed with work, with activities, with what we call life then we deny ourselves the opportunity of being available when God calls us to service. We, more than any generation in history worry too much about tomorrow and forget about today. We must learn how to turn off, to disengage, to give our all but know when to say, " no, I can't commit to anything else."

Prayer: God, give me the wisdom to know when my actions cease to be beneficial and only add to the anxiety of my life. Help me to weed out things that I allow to stress me out without bringing a blessing to my life or the lives of those around me. Lord allow me to let go of worry and rely upon you to sustain me.