Tuesday 27th August
Read Matthew 6:25-27
“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? 26 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? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (NIVUK)
Many have misunderstood Jesus’ instruction to not ‘worry’ (v25). They think that He intended us to live life without being concerned about the future, not making plans for things that may occur, to operate on a ‘faith’ principle and just trust that things will work out the way God intended. Hence they don’t take responsibility for the consequences of their inaction. They live so light to the world that for all intents and purposes they might float away!
The idea that not making plans for the future is what Jesus means by ‘do not worry’ is belied by the very example He provides. Birds don’t sit on a branch and have seeds fall from heaven into their mouths. If anyone has spent even an hour watching birds, they are constantly in motion, searching for the next seed, moving from flower to flower. They are incredibly busy.
What does Jesus mean? Older translations translate, ‘do not worry’ as ‘take no thought’. The sense of the word revolves around not being double-minded or split-focussed. If one’s attention is divided between earthly things rather than the things of heaven, and one’s focus is divided, one can’t see anything clearly! A permanent astigmatism is challenging to live, everything is blurry. At least one of the things Jesus is communicating to those who would follow Him is single-mindedness rather than distraction.
