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Anxiety tends to creep in unnoticed.
We start out wandering life’s aisles, browsing the options available to us, deciding which ones we like and which ones we’ll leave on the shelf. Am I good at sports, music, or art? Do I enjoy books, shopping, or video games? We discover things we enjoy, things we do well, and things we believe are worth pursuing.
Consider your own choices—your summer job, the team you are on, the college you selected, the home you bought, the life you’ve created for yourself and your family, or your place of retirement.
Somewhere along the way, the anxiety begins. Did my choices connect me with the right crowd? Will they still get me where I want to go?
Over time, our choices turn into the skills we are known for. “She’s good at sports,” or “He’s good at music.” They are how people know us. In many ways, they are how we know ourselves, and mixed in are the choices we have made about church and faith.
With all these choices, a pious person might expect God to say, “Give up your worldly desires. They are holding you back from deeper spirituality,” but Jesus surprises us here. Instead, he says, “your heavenly Father knows that you need them” (Matthew 6:32). Food, shelter, relationships—God knows what you need. Jesus doesn’t warn us against wanting them. Rather, it’s our worry that’s the problem.
Why is worry a problem? Because it can dominate our life. It can waste our time and energy when we could be focused on better things. Worry is a thief that steals, kills, and destroys. It focuses our attention on the external and overlooks the inner life where we encounter God’s Spirit.
In scary movies, the characters are constantly running away from a menace nipping at their heels. Their attention is consumed, focused on the source of their fear, and so the characters never seem to escape it.
In the same way, worry turns worthwhile goals into objects of fear. Dominating our attention and consuming our lives. The only way out of worry is to focus on something greater. This is the kind of freedom Jesus is offering. Not merely a freedom FROM worry, but a freedom FOR an abundant life.
Jesus did more than offer us a better way. He showed us a better way.
If anyone had a reason to worry, Jesus did. As he continued to preach in public, his teaching increasingly threatened the powerful. In particular, the religious leaders were furious. They wanted Jesus dead, and they would eventually get their wish.
Yet knowing this, Jesus was not consumed by worry. Looking back, his disciple Peter commented, “when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.” (1 Peter 2:23) Jesus put his well-being in God’s hands. He overcame worry, not with a clever self-help strategy, but with trust.
Jesus showed us that God, when we trust him, will supply our needs. Not always our desires, but always our needs. Beyond any death, there is the hope of resurrection.
When we let worry dominate our attention, we might miss what God is doing. However, when we trust God to supply our needs, we can quit worrying about the possible collision of bad things and start watching for the possible connection of good things.
Jesus knows that “pagans RUN after all these things” (Matthew 6:32, emphasis added). Worry can’t add a single hour to your life. In fact, it will steal your hours and consume your days. Jesus, on the other hand, offers you eternal life, resurrection life. He offers you the freedom to spend your hours exploring and your days discovering.
Rather than running like the pagans, or strutting like the pious, we can receive the living rest Jesus offers us. Jesus invites you out of your exhausting agenda. He invites you away from your anxious anticipation. He invites you to take up the attitude of King David who, instead of worrying, trusted that “Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (Psalm 23:6). Jesus invites you to God, who knows what you need, and he is chasing you with his goodness.