Matthew 6:34

Brothers and sisters in Christ,

Today’s Bible passage is Matthew 6:34 (NRSV): “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” 

This is not a prohibition on planning ahead. God “chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love” (Eph. 1:4). That’s long-term planning on a vast scale. God plans millennia ahead.

Jesus doesn’t tell us not to plan; he counsels us not to worry. Worry feeds on itself. It accomplishes nothing other than to exhaust us, steal our sleep, and make us cranky. We needn’t worry, precisely because God plans ahead. “Look at the birds,” Jesus says. “Consider the wildflowers.” God takes care of them. “Are you not of more value than they?” God will take care of us, too.

Which is by no means the same as promising that tomorrow will go smoothly: “Tomorrow will bring worries of its own.” Today has quite enough problems as it is: “Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

The antidote to worry is confidence in God’s unwavering (but sometimes confusing) love for us. God will care for us, but it may not be how we’d indulge ourselves if we were God. Whatever the immediate future may hold (and the birds and the flowers give us hope that our future will indeed be good), God remains wholly and irrevocably committed to his long-term plan of making us “holy and blameless before him in love.”

The pandemic has brought these truths home to us with a new intensity. We don’t know how long we’ll have to stay safe at home. We don’t know when things will open up again or what effect opening up will have. We don’t know when COVID-19 will be brought under control, when a vaccine will be available, or what the future holds for us economically. We have little choice but to take one day at a time. 

For some of us, worry comes all too easily. It’s how we’re wired. Others find optimism comes more readily. That’s how we’re wired, too. Whatever our natural inclinations, we now have an opportunity to put Jesus’s good counsel into practice as best as we can. Worry won’t help us or make us any happier. Only the love of God in Christ can do that.

Rest assured, though: God doesn’t punish worry. He sympathizes with it. Jesus was tempted in every way just as we are (Heb. 4:15). He aches for us as we worry. He comes alongside us in his Holy Spirit to comfort us. Although he counsels us not to worry but to trust him, he doesn’t turn away from our failure. He stays with us in our struggle, loving us, consoling us, and reassuring us of his good plan for our eternal well-being.

And, since it’s spring, he gives us birds and flowers to enjoy, today and tomorrow.

Your brother in Christ,

Max