Do Not Worry

“ Therefore  I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Matt 6.25-34)

It’s so easy to worry these days. We are constantly encouraged to focus on our own concerns and pleasures, which can be corrosive to our wellbeing and harmful to our neighbours and environment. The pleasures of self-preoccupation are short-lived and  actually prevent  us from enjoying the beauty and wonder of God’s creation. When we make an idol of our own desires, wealth and consumption we fail to see our own place in creation, and we begin to question our value.

Jesus invites us to recognise and move beyond ego. To stop worrying about ourselves and attend to the world around us. ‘Look at the birds of the air’, Jesus urges us, ‘See the flowers in the field…they do not labour or spin’. And yet, they are loved by their creator. Jesus encourages us to contemplate and enjoy the gifts of nature, to be grateful to the Giver and to have faith in God’s love for us too.

Stop worrying about the future, Jesus says at the end of this passage. “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matt 6.34). To summarise then, live in the present, take joy in the natural gifts of the world and be thankful for all that you have. Know that you are loved by God and do not worry.

In the closing line of this passage, Jesus encourages us to stop worrying.