We all have moments of worry and anxiety. Many people are
anxious about the future, planning their lives and stretching forward months
and sometimes years. We can worry about finance, about relationships, about the
world, our communities. In today’s Gospel Jesus urges us not to worry about
material things. We should not be enslaved by possessions. We are asked ‘what
really rules our lives?’ If it is money and objects then that leads nowhere;
they do not lead to fulfillment. Worry is unproductive. We all know this but
that’s not very helpful when we are actually anxious about something. Jesus is
urging us in today’s Gospel to free ourselves of worry. Worry is a symptom of a
lack of faith. Jesus is not calling us to apathy or a life of carelessness but
to realise that nothing was ever achieved by worrying.
How do we respond to worry or anxiety. Do we pray? Do we
talk to God and hand these things over to God? Our thoughts can bring us to
imagining endless outcomes of a situation, but none of those thoughts are real.
Jesus is calling us today to a deeper awareness, to a letting go, to being more
present to this moment, to ‘today’.
“Consider the lilies in the field, how they grow…” These
words of Jesus about the providence of God are powerful and encourage us to put
trust in God at the centre of our lives. God knows our deep desires and needs.
The challenge of the Christian life is to place our trust in God, not material
things, to stay focused on what God is doing in our lives right at this moment. 