Don't worry!

I went for an evangelistic concert by a Hong Kong pastor early this month. His name is Ps. Enoch Lam, and he is super hilarious, yet convincing in all his points. God bless him.

At one point of his preaching, he shared with us about his experience when he was having a trip in Canada. Being used to the very fast paced Hong Kong lifestyle, it was uncomfortable for him while he was in Canada.

He said, in Hong Kong everything is about speed. Putting it in the Malaysian scenario of a parent and child would probably sound like this: faster go and sleep; faster wake up; faster do your homework; faster come and have dinner; faster go and take bath... FASTER!!! And when you are at the traffic light junction, the moment it turns green the cars will start honking.

But in Canada everything is slow! And he emphasized it: slooooow... Why? He said it's because the people there have little to do and have no concern about anything. They have all the time in the world and could afford to go on a 4 hour drive just to see maples. That's like going to KL just to see the Twin Towers and come back to Ipoh. And the service at coffee shops are so slow that he said they would be bankrupted if it was in Hong Kong.

In another incident, he was going to catch a flight and was late to reach the airport. So he goes to check in at the counter and pesters the person to check him in quick. And he goes, "Faster please, my flight number is xxxxxx." points to his watch, "Faster please." But the officer said to him, "Don't worry!" (high pitched and in a rather sing-song way) points to the bunch of people standing behind the pastor, "they are all with the same flight number as you." It took him a long while to get checked in and go on board. He hurried to his seat and settled down quickly, but then the air stewardess announced, "Don't worry!" (also high pitched and in a rather sing-song way) "Delay!"

Revelation: sometimes we keep wishing things would go on a faster pace -- shorter queues, let it be quickly my turn to pay, drive faster and no traffic jam, faster finish my work so I can go home early... the list is never-ending. But the faster you wished it would go, the slower it would: long queues, hold ups at the cashier, traffic jams, last minute assignments, DELAY!

Nowadays we don't have the patience to wait for anything. Everything has to be fast, but that's how we end up choosing the lesser things. We can't wait, so we go for fast food, instant noodles, faster services are better, faster workers are more efficient; so we suffer from diseases related with bad eating habits, shorter tempers, shorter attention span, less effective workers -- we have no patience.

I'm at a period of time where I'm experiencing having to wait for almost everything, literally. Wait for the LRT, wait for the people to go in quickly so I can have a space to squeeze in, wait for the bus to come, wait for the newspaper to come, wait for parking, wait in the traffic jam, wait for my seat at the restaurant, wait for my turn to order food, wait for my food to come, wait in the queue to pay... And on the spiritual areas of my life: wait for God's promises to come to pass, wait for prophecies to be fulfilled, wait for the right person to come along, wait for God's guidance in career advancement... There's so much waiting involved that whenever this happens I keep thinking about this 'revelation' from Ps. Enoch, and I understood that God is training me.

He's saying, "Don't worry! (high pitched and in a rather sing-song way, I imagine) Just wait, it'll come", "Don't worry! DELAY!", "Don't worry! Just trust in Me." James 1:3-4 says "Knowing that the tesing of your faith produces patience, but let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect (mature) and complete, lacking nothing."

And again, Jesus said in Matthew 6:25-34 "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."

Jesus said 'don't worry' three times in this part of the Sermon on the Mount. And just like the reason why He also always says to us "don't be afraid", "do not fear", we also need to add "don't worry" to the list of thou-shall-not's. Sometimes we don't know how not to worry when we have so many things at hand every day. In fact, we worry about almost everything, from real concerns to things that actually would never happen!

Jesus offers us the solution:
Matthew 11:28 "Come to me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

John 14:27 "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

John 14:1 "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me."

God, I believe in You. Sometimes I really don't know what I should do or how my future will unfold, but I trust in You. I trust in Your Word. I'm holding on to You; I'm never letting go. Because You've not and will never let go of me.