Worrying:

"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 important than food, and the body more important 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? (Matthew 6:25-26)

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:33-34)

I have a confession to make: I am a ‘worrier’; or at least I worry a lot. I lived in denial of that for a long time because it is not cool to worry, especially for a young wannabe macho. My typecast of a ‘worrier’ was always my friend Guy’s mum. When we were younger, we joked about the fact that she always found something to be concerned about. Perhaps as a result, I saw worrying as a stereotypically feminine characteristic: one that particularly revealed itself in middle-aged women with children. For that reason it was difficult for me to admit that I struggled in that area.

But worrying is not limited to a particular gender. Arguably we do see the most pronounced signs of it in middle-aged women because they are our mothers, and so naturally we are the source of most of their concerns. But men are equally capable of worrying. Perhaps the words we use to describe it change, but the essence remains the same. Jesus didn’t bother with terms like ‘work-related stress’, which sound more grown-up or respectable. He just said don’t worry.

I think worrying is something that, if unchecked, develops with age. A young child generally doesn’t have many great concerns in life. Often he is not even concerned about his own safety. That’s one reason why mums worry so much. By the time we reach our teenage years, however, we have accumulated a great number of extremely serious concerns, such as: ‘Does my hair look good today?’, ‘Will I pass all my GCSE exams?’, and ‘Does he/she like me?’ By the time we get to adulthood, this tendency to worry has become an established part of our mindset. The worries just get bigger and more complicated as our responsibilities and mental capacity increase.

Jesus didn’t talk much about these more complex concerns. He didn’t mention male pattern baldness, work deadlines, social hierarchies or relational stresses – as far as I know. He just talked about some of the most basic concerns that we have: the foundational ones in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. God promises to meet all foundational needs. As Jesus said, God feeds the birds of the air, so he will feed you too, because you are so much more valuable than them. God says that we who believe in Christ are His children, and co-heirs with Christ. He is not the kind of father who feeds his pets but doesn’t feed his children. That would be ridiculous. Imagine if the Queen of England fed her Corgis but let the princes starve. Even if she did, God would not neglect us.

But Zion said, "The LORD has forsaken me,
the Lord has forgotten me."

Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!

(Isaiah 49:14-15)

We know that he will meet our basic needs. Our primary responsibility is not to provide ourselves with food, clothing and shelter, but to ‘seek first his kingdom and his righteousness’. If we do this, he will always show us His faithfulness, which is infinitely greater than ours. We can enjoy today without fearing what may become of us tomorrow. We know that Jehovah Jireh (‘God will see/provide’) is with us, and that His care of us will not fail.

But what about the slightly more complex needs? When Jesus says, ‘seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well’, in the immediate context he is speaking about food, drink and clothing. What about the things that perhaps we don’t require for physical survival, but which we consider to be so important that we do not want to live all our lives without them? This is often where our trust breaks down. Suddenly, we don’t feel so confident that God will provide – or perhaps we are not so confident that we will really like His provision. We think that perhaps He won’t give us the very best. One example might be the search for a wife or husband. Maybe we don’t see quite so many promises about that. The same could be true in other areas of our life, too.

Our trust should not be primarily in the promises but in the character and ability of the One who makes them. Our God is both infinitely powerful and incredibly generous. And he is deeply interested in our needs; even more than we are, in fact. Before saying, ‘But seek first his kingdom…’ Jesus explains: ‘…the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them’. When he gave his Sermon on the Mount, he said, ‘And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.’ (Matthew 6:7-8) I love the detail that in the beginning, Adam did not say to God, ‘I’m kind of lonely here. It’s not good for me to be alone! Give me somebody else to talk to and have babies with!’ Instead, ‘the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable helper for him.”... Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of man, and he brought her to the man.’ (Genesis 2:18, 22) God takes the initiative in providing for us. He is not a begrudging provider: he is infinitely generous.


In his letter to the Roman church, the apostle Paul says, ‘He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not, also, along with him, graciously give us all things?’ (Romans 8:32) One of the things Paul is saying here is this: God’s generosity has already been proven. He has given the most precious and costly gift possible: His own everlasting Son. What is more, He has given this Son, through whom all things were created, for sinners like you and me. It was a gift of pure grace. It was completely underserved. We have no grounds, therefore, on which to question God’s generosity. In fact, we can fully trust in it, for God is unchanging.

Yet so often I falter in my trust. Every day I seem to be anxious about something. God has been challenging me about that, and showing me that I need to deal with it. A good friend of mine here sent me a verse by text message. Then, two days later, another friend sent me the same verse: Philippians 4:6-9. I quote the first part of that passage here:

‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.’

Pete