Click this link to hear an audio version of the below text narrated by SOTH member Jerry Rhinehart:
Matthew 6:25-34 (NIV)
Do Not Worry
25 “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? 28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
We often worry so much because we do not actually believe that God cares about us. If we read this passage as children of a loving Father it becomes less of a command to all of us worry-warts to “knock it off” and more of an invitation to be kids! We can actually live life as kids who are not worried about their next meal, or whether they will have clothes or if they will have a bed to sleep in. When we seek God first we are given an incredible benefit: access to his provision. The question, then, is whether we believe that God really does care and will we seek Him or will we seek everything we need from some other source?