How much of your life is curtailed because of fear? How many things do you avoid, or risks you
refuse to take, because the fear of the loss that might come to pass, is just
too great for you? The thing we call
life, the way we define our existence, is so often ravaged by our fears. We construct a box for ourselves to live
within, hoping that if we stay confined to our box, we will be safe. But inevitably life has a way of knocking
down the walls of any box, and when the reality of those challenges present,
its most devastating side effect, is to deepen the fear that governs how we
live at all. Imagine for a moment if you
had taken every risk you were ever presented with, but imagine that they all
worked out positively. It is as if your
brain won’t let you imagine that outcome.
Surely the nature of a risk, is that not all of them work out the way we
want, so imagining they do is nearly impossible. It presents a “too good to be true”
scenario. And yet, your mind is much
more comfortable imagining every risk would have worked out badly. And that kind of imagination, governs what
you have done, and what you will do.
That kind of risk avoidance, that is so easy to imagine
going badly, and so difficult to imagine working out the way we want, leaves a
footprint in how we live. It confines
our actions, and stunts our imaginations.
It pushes us to want a life we can define, and predict, with relative
certainty will go the way we want. You
call that common sense. An outside
observer would call it moved-by-fear. So
to get you to look beyond. To get you to
examine what life may have to offer beyond the limits and history of your fear,
you must ignore your fears. This is
especially true in matters of religion. Nearly
every time an Angel is commissioned to communicate with mankind, the first few
words are generally, “fear not”. There
is a reason for this. Confronted with
the supernatural, with the out-of-bounds, something beyond the limits you set
for yourself and your ideas about life … the first human response is one of
fear. Not joy, not rejoicing (imagine it,
most of the news they have to say is usually always good, sometimes really
good), not even curiosity. The first
human response is fear.
Having an Angel appear in your real world, knocks the wall
down of the nice little box you construct for yourself. Thus, the message of the good news they bring
must wait, while first they re-assure our fears. And these messages are most often reserved
for believers, for people who have chosen to believe in our God, in His Word,
and the history of communication between God and man it has presented. Even behind the lives steeped in belief,
remain human fear, human uncertainty.
And this condition is not meant to be permanent. It is not even meant to be how we live
today. Consider as an example, the
slightly misplaced argument that toddlers have on the playground about “my dad
is bigger than your dad”. The real
notion behind it, is that the toddler is asserting his/her own security based
on the idea that their dad is big enough to ward off any threat. The toddler is comfortable looking to daddy
to protect them, care for them, and generally be a fence between themselves and
evil. While slightly misplaced, the
basis of this argument is sound, if we were to apply it to God instead. Even daddies need that analogy.
Security enables us to feel better. Certainty, a hedge against the downside of
risk, allows us to live life in a completely different way. When you are not scared about eating, about
making a living, about God taking care of the things, the burdens, you usually
take upon yourself; something wonderful happens. You begin to let go of the fear, and start to
really live, outside of the box, outside of the boundaries you used to place
upon yourself. Your existence begins to
change because the way you think about your existence begins to change. It is in a sense self-fulfilling, but it
cannot begin or be effective, without an outside assurance that will cover the
fears we face, and hedge the risks we no longer fear to take. What our “Daddy” can do for us in this
regard, is something He longs to do. It
is how we live in the eternity of heaven.
And it can begin right here and right now, if we will only let Him do it
for us.
Jesus Himself gives us the roadmap for this. Matthew continues recording His Sermon on the
Mount in chapter six of his gospel.
Jesus has just concluded a snippet about true currency valuation, and
what relevance money has in the light of eternal things. But before humans can let go the fear of
using our money differently, we need assurances too many of us ignore. Yet here they are. Picking up in verse 25 Jesus continues saying
… “Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat,
or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the
life more than meat, and the body than raiment?” This is radical reprioritization. We spend our lives working to feed our
families, put a roof over their heads, and clothes on their back. From the extreme rich, to the very poor, the
mechanics remain the same. Yet here is
Jesus putting an abrupt halt on everything we value, on our entire economic
structure, and furthermore saying “take no thought” for it.
This is beyond a general admonition not to have fear
regarding it. This is nothing even
remotely related to having balance between responsibility and
spirituality. This is a one-sided,
completely weighted statement, that passes up any boundary we are comfortable
with. “Take no thought” means past not
worrying or stressing, don’t even think about it. We can be that certain in how we live, that
God Himself is looking after our lives, that we need not even think about what
we eat, or wear. The question is not
whether I shop at Saks Fifth Avenue, or Walmart, for my clothing. The proposition Jesus makes, is that my body
is the important thing to God, and God will take care of clothing it.
Jesus continues in verse 26 saying … “Behold the fowls of
the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet
your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?” Jesus has a point. Birds wake up every day, and go eat. The bird never has to worry that they will
not find food. They simply look, and
there it is. God does the worrying. God provides for the feeding. The bird is just living his life, he is not
obsessing about whether he has a full pantry of food at home, or whether his
canned goods supply are adequate to withstand the next hurricane disaster. The bird just wakes up and eats. Mom’s bring home food for their little
birds. There is never a worry about this
kind of thing. If you took the evil of
predatory creatures out of the equation, birds would thrive. You don’t see them going extinct because of
lack of food. Even though they still
have to contend with what man does to their natural habitats, with pollution,
with weather events just like we do. Yet
after a hurricane, when the storms roll away, there are the birds. They just wake up and eat and live without a
thought about it.
Jesus drives home the point in verse 27 saying … “Which of
you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?” This is not just a frustration the shorter
population faces. It equally applies to
health issues you have almost no control over.
Think about it, as you read this, your local hospital is filled with
people in varying degrees of need. This
is true all over the city, country, and world in general. Wealth is no barrier against being
there. Youth isn’t either. Fitness despite all its other benefits does
not shield you against cancer. And our
thoughts about what we want, and our fears about what we want to avoid, do
nothing from keeping any one of us from becoming the patient in the bed right
next door. If we cannot control our
bodies by sheer force of will, why do we take on the fear and stress over them
as if we could. The stress does not fix
the problems, it only makes them worse.
There is a better solution.
Jesus continues in verse 28 saying … “And why take ye
thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil
not, neither do they spin: [verse 29] And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon
in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. [verse 30] Wherefore, if
God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast
into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” Ok Macy’s, your entire value proposition has
just been cut to the ground. And so has
yours Walmart. Jesus asks us to simply
look at the beauty He has created around us in nature. Beauty that occurs whether we encourage it or
not. If God offers us the beauty of
Roses, and Lillies, and Tulips and Trees; He takes care of things that have a short
span of time here in the world, and things that last. Flowers cannot just transplant themselves to
find better foods. Nor has a tree ever
been given this kind of option. The
Sequoias have been there for quite some time, and yet still they grow, their
beauty a remarkable thing. If God so
takes care of the transient things, why would He not take care of you?
Jesus summarizes His thoughts picking up in verse 31 saying
… “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we
drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? [verse 32] (For after all these
things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have
need of all these things. [verse 33] But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and
his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Your thoughts, your worries, your pursuits
are either wasted in the temporary things of this world, or founded in the
eternal things of God that matter. Jesus
tells us here that what we eat is not worth thinking about, food will be
there. He tells us what we wear is not
our concern, God will make sure we have something, and that it lasts. Following this advice may not offer us a
wealth of new clothing every season, but it will meet our needs. Following this advice may not have us eating
at Morton’s every night, but it will have us eating to meet our needs. And trusting God, to provide these things, is
to just test what He provides. His gifts
are amazing.
What should be our focus is seeking His kingdom, the thing
that lasts and matters. The rest of the
temporary needs will be met. Jesus
concludes this line of thinking with a more realistic and somber thought
continuing in verse 34 saying … “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.” The problem is not
our food, or clothes. It is our
priorities. It is our faith or trust in
God. It is our inclination to focus upon
ourselves and begin to indulge the evil that lays in wait all around us. THAT is the real problem. That is something we can have a little stress
about. Because the problem there is not
half so much about what surrounds us as what lies inside of us. Our refusal to trust. Our refusal to change how we live, and who we
rely upon to support us. We take on
burdens that do not belong to us, and in so doing continue to entertain fear,
and uncertainty, that otherwise could die a permanent death.
How great could be our Christian lives and experience if we
could think differently about who takes care of us, and who is there to meet
the risks, and solve the challenges. A
sense of self-reliance is our biggest handicap.
Atheists must rely upon this as it is all they have. But Christians should be able to rely upon
something more, to a point where we literally … take no thought.
And the Sermon was far from over …
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