Matthew 6: No Word for Worry?

Three words commonly used in our everyday discourse are absent from the language of the Moken people.* For hundreds of years, the Moken have lived on the Andaman Sea around the islands off the Southeast Asian coasts of Thailand and Burma (That’s right, on. They live mostly in their boats, on the sea). Not only does the Moken language exclude these three words from its lexicon, the Moken people have no concept of their meanings.

What are the words? Worry. When. Want. The Mokan don’t ask when. They don’t want. They don’t worry.

It makes sense, I guess, that they don’t worry. Like a never-ending merry-go-round, WHEN and WANT cycle through our lives, producing endless, meaningless WORRY. The things that make us WORRY have to do with WHEN and WANT. If you’re not concerned with WHEN, you don’t WORRY. If you don’t WANT, you don’t WORRY. If you don’t wonder WHEN you’re going to get what you WANT, you don’t WORRY.

In our culture, we are consumed with anxiety. It’s perhaps the number one health concern, leading to depression, ulcers, and even more serious health problems. If we were to take a cue from the Moken, deleting WHEN and WANT from our consciousness, perhaps WORRY would disappear. To delete WHEN would mean to live in the now, unconsumed by fear of the future. To delete WANT would mean to live content, not coveting what we don’t have.

Is it possible not to worry? Well, just look at the Moken.

Look to Jesus. God is good enough to take care of you. What’s Jesus’ answer to the worry that preoccupies us? Make it your number one priority to keep seeking God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness in all that you do (Matt. 6:33). Eugene Peterson, in The Message, puts Jesus’ words like this:

What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.

*I first heard about the Moken in a 60 Minutes story reported by Bob Simon on June 10, 2007 (originally aired on March 20, 2005). Here’s the link to the full story: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/18/60minutes/main681558.shtml)