Why?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 

I don’t really worry about clothes, and I don’t know anyone who does.  Of course, I’m sure some do, but they probably also worry about food and health, as well.  So what is Jesus referring to, here?  Sweaters, pants, shirts?

Clothes are the stuff we wear that cover our shame of being naked.  It’s the covering Adam & Eve made to cover themselves after they had broken fellowship with God. And it’s something we all deal with, feeling ashamed when we fail in our walk with Him, and try to somehow get in His good graces once more.

Jesus refers us to the flowers out in the field.  The first reference was a bird – who doesn’t sow or reap.  And this second analogy is a flower – which doesn’t labor or spin.  He’s painting a picture of an entity at rest.

He then says that this picture at rest is beautiful.  In fact, he says that Solomon in all of his splendor (which is indescribable) doesn’t compare to the beauty of a flower blooming in a field.

Jesus covers our nakedness, our shame, and our unworthiness and makes us beautiful.  There isn’t any amount of work or success we can achieve to be beautiful in his sight.  We just are.

And when we grasp that knowledge, we’re at rest, and we don’t worry.

It seems we are usually doing the opposite of everything required to be at peace – and that is standing still and being fed and clothed by our Father.

Why Do It?

Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

Now that’s the question of the century.  The obvious answer is “Well, no, Lord.”  It sounds so simple then. If we can’t add an hour to our life by worrying, why do we worry?

There’s a song with lyrics that I love, some of which state, “Our lives are in your hands.  Oh Lord, we want them to be there.  Our hopes and dreams and plans, we trust entirely to your care.” And therein lies the problem.  We don’t trust him to care enough about us to fulfill that which we hope for, dream about and plan towards.

When I have a friend who loses a husband, or a child, or when I see a child lose a parent, I automatically think, “How can they make it?” and “Why, Lord?”  And then comes the thought, “What if that happened to me?”

No amount of worry does us any good.  Worrying doesn’t add to our life, but it sure can subtract.  Countless hours are wasted, sleep is lost, and hearts are stressed, when we worry.

The only thing that CAN add to our life is trusting our lives into His care.  It’s once again changing our focus from us to Him.

Look Up

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? 

In regards to worry, Jesus said to look up.  Why did he choose birds, and not fish or lions or worms? It must be because birds, like Jesus so pointedly mentioned, don’t sow (plant), reap  (harvest), or store away in barns (store up for future), and YET God feeds them.

In other words, we can sow, reap, and store all we want and all we can…but it’s really up to God to sustain us.   

A person who is focused solely on planting, reaping, and storing is consumed with the process.  Their vision is horizontal and down.  They work hard, they are proud of their reward, and they feel secure knowing they’ve got a stash for hard times. It’s all self-sufficiency, and that’s where the worry breeds.  When we’ve labored, we’ve received a good harvest, and we have lots left over from our hard work, we know that it can all disappear in a moment and we’ll have nothing.

But when we sow, reap, and store – knowing that God is the source of all that we have or ever will have – the worry has no place to sprout.  We finish with our chores and we soar.

Jesus ends this verse with another question, “Are you not much more valuable then they?”

God sustains us and he counts us valuable.  There’s nothing we can do to earn that – it’s just who He is and what he offers.  And that knowledge, that truth, transcends the present worry of what will be tomorrow.

Worry

I’m going to pick apart Matthew 25-35 over the next few days because I’ve read it a million times, and yet I don’t feel comforted by it.  Even though I know worrying doesn’t add a minute to my life, I still worry.

We say things to our kids like “Be careful” when they leave in their car after dark, as we worry they might not make it back home.  We hang up from the one we love with an “I love you” in a tone that begs them to come home safely from work in the early evening.  And we sit down to pay the bills and sigh, wondering if we’ll have “enough” for the clothes our kids now need, because they’ve outgrown the old ones.  It seems to be part of our DNA to worry, yet we’re instructed not to do it.

The first part of the passage asks a question, “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?”  Why did Jesus ask that question? 

Food is something external that we eat to stay alive physically, and clothes are the things we wear to cover our shame of being naked.  So is Jesus saying there’s more at stake, more to think about, and more to fill our minds with other than our next meal and the latest fashion?

I think he’s warning us of the trap of literally working to eat and be clothed.  He’s stating there’s a life to be lived that transcends those daily tasks of feeding and clothing our bodies.  And that is “life” with Him.

So maybe our focus is always horizontal when it should be turned upwards.  And I’m thinking it takes training and hard work to switch that focus.  It’s like trying to turn on an outside faucet that’s been stuck in one direction for way too long.  But when it’s finally loose – watch out – the water comes pouring out.

Where are you?

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

After Adam and Eve sinned, God came looking for them.  He knew their fellowship had been broken.

Sometimes I wake up in the morning, and I feel and hear God looking for me.  Sometimes I get busy and never take time to sit with Him. Other times, I feel I don’t have time, so I ignore him until later in the day.  But then...eventually...I sit down and listen.

I used to think God only wanted to be with me to scold me, tell me something hard to do, or lay heavy burdens on my shoulders. 

God enjoys us.  He created us for His pleasure.  And when we have sinned, he still comes looking for us.  He always pursues.

Because of Jesus, you are not banished from fellowship with Him.  Instead, you are covered and invited to sit a while for a visit from Heaven.

Bugged Eve

Eve saw the fruit of the tree God had told her not to eat and realized it really looked good. So why in the world would God keep it from her?  That would be mean. So she ate. Then she shared what she ate.  And then it happened.

The disobedience caused her eyes to be opened to see her own nakedness and sent her into shame, and into the frenzy of trying to cover herself.

Up until this moment, Eve had unbroken fellowship with the Lord God.  Everything he had made was hers to enjoy, with the exception of one tree.  That bugged Eve because she judged her Maker.

When my son was little, he wanted a piece of candy on the ground that was covered with ants.  Of course, I said no.  But being an toddler, he didn’t understand and began to cry – just like Eve. 

God has reasons (and they’re always good ones) for his directives.  And we have to be careful that our eyes, or what “looks good” to us, don’t rule our actions.  Any time we disobey the Lord, we feel shamed and need a covering.

Thankfully, because of Jesus, we can immediately come to Him, confess our sin, and he is faithful and just to forgive us.  We’re once again in fellowship with Him.

That’s amazing love.

The Big Lie

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.  “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

In these verses, after the serpent questions the validity of what God told Eve when he directed her to not eat from a specific tree, he now says that God’s warning was a lie.  He goes even further to say that God is up to some sort of trick.

God is holy and just and loving, and when he speaks to us about our lives and gives us warnings, i.e. don’t gossip – because it separates friends – He means it.  And his warnings are never some sort of trick.  Everything he says or directs us to do is motivated by love.

The Bible says that God is love.  He’s the very definition of love, and he cannot lie, nor trick us, nor does he fear sharing too much with us about Himself.  He is truth and actually wants a relationship with us so much that he sent his Spirit to dwell in us.

Make sure that what you’re hearing lines up with who God says he is.  You can trust Him, even if all you’ve ever known from others has been hurtful and deceitful.

God is love.