I still remember the day like it was yesterday, it was a Saturday and we had nothing to eat. All we had was a little money that could buy us a loaf of bread. This was in our early years of marriage and I remember looking at my wife and saying, “We have a choice to make, do we buy a loaf of bread or do we sleep hungry and use the little money we have as bus fare to go to church tomorrow?”
Matthew 6:25
25 “Therefore I tell you, stop being worried or anxious (perpetually uneasy, distracted) about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, as to what you will wear. Is life not more than food, and the body more than clothing?
Many of us spend a considerable amount of time and effort worrying about the basic needs in life. You worry because the cost of living has gone high, how will you afford to feed your family? Rents have sky rocketed to unbelievable and unrealistic prices. Then there is school fees, books, school uniform and all the other basics that our kids need to go to school. Life has become too expensive to even afford the bare minimum and many of us are worried about that. We are consistently running around trying to make ends meet, stress is wearing us down no wonder we do not have the time to seek after God and his kingdom.
Stop the worry! That is what Jesus tells us. We worry because we look at the picture before us and we do not have solutions and our needs and how to meet them occupy more space in our minds than God. Jesus says do not worry because He has the solutions. God knows that we have need of all these things and we have to trust him enough to know that as we seek him then he will make a way for us where there seems to be no way.
He takes care of the birds providing for them daily what they need yet they do not sow or gather crops in barns. Have you ever seen a worried bird? Have you ever seen a bird envious because the bird next door has a bigger more beautiful nest? Or maybe a bird sitting on its eggs worried about how it will feed its chicks when the eggs hatch. They do not worry and God provides all that they need yet we are of more value to him than the birds of the air or the lilies of the field that he clothes in such splendor.
Matthew 6:27
27 And who of you by worrying can add one [l]hour to [the length of] his life?
Worry does not add anything to your life instead it robs you of the today and now that you are meant to enjoy. The cupboard may be bare, the rent may be due, the kids may be in need of clothes and you do not see a way out. Jesus says “Do not worry, seek after me and believe that I am able to provide for you.”
So, did we but a loaf of bread? No we did not, we decided to sleep hungry and use the money as fare to church the next day and God had a major surprise for us, that’s a story for another day.
