"Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. – Matthew 6.31-34
Worry is destructive. It is not good for our health, it is not good for our emotions, it is not good for our families, it is not good for our churches, and it is not good for our spirits. It distracts us, it causes us to lose sleep, it gets us depressed and discouraged.
Jesus uses the examples here of ‘What are we going to eat, what are we going to drink, and what are we going to wear,’ because those were very real issues for His hearers. We might go on today to say ‘what am I going to do when I get old, what am I going to do if the economy collapses, what am I going to do if I am laid off, what am I going to do about my negative equity, what I am going to do if this and that?’
Jesus puts it this way, ‘This is the kind of thing that non-believers worry about. Don’t worry about all this things. God knows what you need. If you are seeking God’s kingdom and His righteousness all of these things will be sorted out.’
That is such a clear statement. He goes on to state it even more clearly. ‘Don’t worry about tomorrow. It has its own worries. ’We don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring or how God is going to work. Most of our worry is full of ‘what ifs’ and ‘what if nots.’ We don’t need to live with what ifs when we have the promise that if we are seeking God’s kingdom and His righteousness He will take care of all the things we spend so much time worrying about.
We must learn to deal with each day as it comes and trust God to help us through it. Worry distracts us from dealing with today and that only makes matters worse for the future.
‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things (food and drink and clothes and whatever else) will be added to you.’
May God give us the strength to trust Him today and pursue His righteousness.
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