Do Not Worry About Your Life

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

Few passages of the Bible have given me more trouble than Matthew 6:25–34. Jesus tells the crowds listening to him that they shouldn’t be anxious about their lives. That is, they shouldn’t worry about meeting their basic needs, such as food and clothing.

His rationale is two-fold.

First, God is aware of their needs and will take care of them accordingly. By way of illustration, Jesus points to God’s providential care over the rest of creation. Birds do not engage in the sort of planning that humans do and yet God feeds them. The flowers in a field show no signs of struggle and yet, despite their short life, God extravagantly “clothes” them in the time of their blossom.

These illustrations represent an argument from lesser to greater: Humans are more important than birds and flowers. If God cares for them, he will care for you.

Second, anxiety over meeting one’s needs provides no positive benefit. Jesus comedically illustrates such futility by asking whether a person can add time to his/her lifespan by simply worrying it into existence. The answer is clearly “no.”

Thus, worry is demonstrated here to be unnecessary, because God provides, and, in any case, good for nothing. It is the antithesis of the proper trust one is to have in God.

On its surface, this sounds reasonable. It is surely hopeful. And yet there are a few things that complicate this admonition against worry, and one matter in particular that presents a more pressing difficulty.

We should first observe that some level of anxiety can represent a part of your body’s natural defense mechanism that serves to warn and thereby protect you from real danger. In this respect, anxiety might be understood as beneficial—a motivating influence for you to take appropriate measures to ensure your well-being and that of those in your care (see 2 Corinthians 11:28).

However, I do not think that Jesus has this normal stress response to potentially threatening circumstances in view. His prohibition against anxiety is almost certainly not aimed toward an idealistic emotional detachment from one’s concerns (see Matthew 26:36–46).

We should also note that, for some, anxiety may indicate a serious medical condition. The National Institute of Mental Health identifies several types of anxiety disorders that may be the result of genetic and environmental factors and/or underlying physiological problems.

While such illnesses may not fall entirely outside the scope of Jesus’ admonition, I neither think he is referring to a severe mental health issue. Rather, it seems to me that he is addressing the more commonplace fretting that occurs when a person contemplates the prospects of his/her survival in light of an uncertain future.

But, even so, one stumbling block remains: how do we reconcile this passage with the empirical reality of those who have their basic needs go unmet? Exemplary, according to the United Nations, in 2016, over 10% of the world’s population were suffering from chronic undernourishment.

Of course, an appalling statistic as this is a sharp reminder of the work to which God’s people are called. Indeed, Jesus also says here that while “the gentiles” (read: “outsiders”) are no less concerned about meeting their needs, his disciples are to “seek first God’s kingdom and [God’s] righteousness,” and then “all these things will be given to [them] as well” (Matthew 6:33).

Notwithstanding the church’s agency in meeting needs as part and parcel of the work of the kingdom, I still cannot help but recognize that one of the two rationales provided by Jesus in order to stave off anxiety fails to consistently prove itself. I can readily accept the claim that worry is useless—even sinful—but I am left wondering how Jesus could make what seems to be a sure promise to his people in light of facts that clearly suggest otherwise.

Birds die from lack of suitable provisions all the time and so do people.

It cannot be that the promise is restricted to only those who demonstrate enough faithfulness to God. Are we to believe that God refuses food or clothing to some—perhaps the over 800 million starving people in the world—because they lack faith? No.

It also cannot be that the promise is reserved for the future coming of God’s kingdom in full. Since most Christians (including the gospel writer’s original audience) will experience physical death before the kingdom’s full arrival, I am not sure how it could then function as grounds for dissuading anxiety about the future—at least in terms of this present life (but see 1 Corinthians 15:19 and Romans 8:18).

Perhaps the answer lies in the person who spoke these words: a Galilean peasant who was, in the end, crucified by an unjust foreign oppressor. Jesus knew firsthand the darkness in the world; a world that at present may fail to deliver what it ought.

In this light, we might finally decide to interpret the passage as inviting us to a renewed “childlike” trust in God as the antidote to worry—not a naïve belief that “everything will work out,” but rather a refusal to relinquish hope in the God who has the power to bring new life out of death.