I have a tendency to lose my mind. It seems that in times like this, with the school year winding down, I find myself filled with confusion and anxiety over so many things. My identity as a student is approaching its end for the summer, and soon I will be trying to fit into the working world — always a little too soft, too used to books and classes. I think about my trip back to Pakistan. I hope that it will all work out, and I think about how it will be to visit my family and my country. And yet it’s not my country. I’m not Pakistani, but I’m even less Canadian — so what am I? It’s these kinds of questions that seem to plague my mind so recently. A jumble of thoughts, dreams and worries tossing about my head. Charlotte Brontë writes “A ruffled mind makes a poor pillow.” I feel my heavy head and weary eyes can relate. I can’t make sense of this mess inside me.
Suddenly questions of what I am going to do with my future, where I belong, or if I’ll ever belong, are flooding my mind. I think that often the press of work and studies seems to block them out. But now with the pressure subsiding, my mind dreams and wanders. Some days all I can think of is the future. I want to be in Pakistan now. Other days I find myself afraid of how fast time goes and how soon I will be there, perhaps for good, along with all its trials and problems. I worry. I learned well from my mother.
However, this evening I was reminded of a wonderful verse. After talking about the worries of life, and our fears of not having food to eat or clothes to wear, Christ has these extremely powerful words:
“Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” (Matt. 6:33)
There is my call. And my encouragement?
“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” (6:34).
Why do I forget these things? Why do we all forget these things? We have whole industries built around people’s fears and anxieties for tomorrow, and whole philosophies working on trying to fix this innate fear of ours. We fear the fact that we have no power over tomorrow. We don’t even know whether we’ll wake up breathing in the morning or not. We have no power over whether we’ll have the next minute of our lives, and so we plan, posses and protect ourselves until we live in a world that we feel we have control of. I guess I’m just coming to the place where I am losing that control. But it’s good to know that someone is taking care of tomorrow. And what is my job for today? “Seek first the Kingdom of God.”