Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; or, Wherewithall shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Matthew 6:30-34
I love how Jesus points out here, that from His standpoint, worry is absolutely unreasonable. He is saying that the greatest concern of our lives should be our relationship with God. Worrying about things we cannot change is useless. It amplifies problems out of proportion. We were not born as worriers, it's something that we get better at when we practice it. Thankfully, it can be unlearned. We have this mindset that if we aren't stressed, anxious or worried about the circumstances of our lives, then nothing will get taken care of or get any better. We doubt God's ability to fix things. Worry NEVER solves the problem. We cannot change the past or predict the future, so when we live lives filled with worry, we are only making ourselves miserable in the present moment. God PROMISES to take care of the details of our lives, we are only asked to trust Him. This passage says that God knows what we need before we even ask, He knows the circumstances of our lives and He wants to be intimately involved with every detail of our day. The final verse in this chapter says that we need to take each day at a time. Don't be anxious about tomorrow, because we aren't even promised another day.
There is a difference between concern and worry. There's a healthy degree of concern - parents don't allow their children to play in the street and we need to be concerned about our health if we know we are sick. Concern is doing what you need to do to avoid or help a situation, while worry is when you can't do anything about it but you refuse to leave it up to God. One can spiritualize it anyway they want, but worry is sin, simple as that. And most of us, myself included, are guilty.
Worry is a demonstration of faithlessness. I work in a preschool, and if the kids in my class worried whether or not I was going to feed them lunch that day, I would feel pretty bad about the way they see me as a teacher. They trust that I'm going to feed them lunch, and take care of them. They know that's my responsibility, and I will come through. If we are worrying whether or not God is going to take care of us, imagine how that makes Him feel. He created us, He knows what things we need, and He promises to provide for us. When we worry, we are telling God that we don't trust Him enough to pull through.
As verse 35 of Matthew 6 says, our main priority should be seeking the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Our worry about things in our day to day lives is taking the place of our focus on the things of God. If we are anxious about anything, it should be the affairs of Heaven. God is more than capable of taking care of everything on Earth.
Don't let things you can't control, control you.
Stay excellent!
