April 20 - Matthew 6:25-30

April 20 - Matthew 6:25-30

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious 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: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

I might have been a little snarky if I had been one of Jesus’ disciples.  Yep, pretty sure I would have asked him a few questions about this one.  Especially because this is so much easier said than done.  And hey, even Jesus got a little fretful when he was in the garden before crucifixion, worrying about the pain that was to come.

My question to him would have been, “Alright, I have a brain that was given to me by God.  He didn’t give that same brain to the birds of the air, I’m not a lily in the field or the grass of the field.  I have this crazy human brain that is always worrying about stuff and God gave it to me.”

Maybe he would have talked to me about original sin, how Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and if they hadn’t done that I wouldn’t have even really known how to worry.  Who knows.

But, what I do know is that everyone who thinks about things, worries about things.  Some of us call it being planful, some of us just admit to worrying.  But, we worry.  And no amount of telling us to stop it is going to actually be successful.

Jesus reminds us that it really isn’t about us. When we spend too much time thinking about ourselves, we aren’t considering what it is that God really does for us.  He has provided all that we need.  We have created lives that demand we acquire more things.

What do you need? What do you worry about? What can you change so that the two become more in balance?