Two-Handed Advice

Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring. (Proverbs 27:1)

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:34)

Two-handed advice. On the one hand, we should not boast about tomorrow. On the other hand, we should not worry about it. On the one hand, we don’t know what will happen and can’t control it as much as we’d like. On the other, we don’t know what will happen and can’t control it as much as we’d like.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t plan or prepare. I doubt God has a problem with my prepping meals or processing harvests for tomorrow. There isn’t likely to be a problem with holding down a job. The question is whether we stop with reasonable planning and prepping or go on to build castles and/or haunted houses in the clouds.

The first problem with boasting and worrying is that, since we don’t know and can’t control, we are often wrong about the boasts or worries. The thing we hoped for or feared doesn’t happen and something better or worse does. The second problem is that the thing we boast or worry about – or some idea behind it – tends to become our idol. It doesn’t matter whether that false god is good or evil; it still controls us.

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The List

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