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Today, our Wilderness Wanderings comes from special guest, Nina Schuurman-Drenth, who is a candidate for a Masters of Divinity and for ordination in the CRC.\xa0\xa0

So do not worry, saying, \u2018What shall we eat?\u2019 or \u2018What shall we drink?\u2019 or \u2018What shall we wear?\u2019 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:31-34)

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For some us, the threat of not knowing where our next meal is going to come from is a real lived experience, but for many of us, we have never fretted over the basic necessities; they have always been available to us, and in some cases, available in excess. But here in this passage, Jesus was speaking to an agrarian community - a society that functioned around the rhythms of farm life - and unquestionably many of his listeners at that time would have had experiences with food insecurity.

Because of the distance some of us have from the experience of food insecurity, it can be hard for us to really grasp the gravity of Jesus\u2019 call here to not worry about what we will eat and drink. When he is saying here that even if you wake up one morning with a completely empty fridge and a swarm of children and a spouse to feed, there is STILL no need to worry - and there is STILL a call to remember the truth that your Father knows what you need. In other words, this is a radical call to an anxiety-free life, and to wholehearted trust that God can meet your every need.

The passage particularly urges us to not worry about tomorrow, and it is so easy to fall into the trap of fixation on the next thing. Worry about next week and the provisions of the future. We want to secure ourselves the good life in the days to come: perhaps on the house we\u2019re looking to buy, or on grades for the semester ahead; maybe we are looking ahead to the time in which we will have another child, or the spouse we\u2019ve been waiting for, or the job we\u2019ve had our eyes on. But Jesus invites us to lay down our worries for tomorrow because they were never ours to carry anyhow. They always belonged to someone else: to the Father who knows our every need. Anxiety, then, comes from trying in vain to grasp a future that we cannot control.

What is the alternative call then, now that our hands have been emptied of that which we cannot control? To rather \u201cseek first the Kingdom.\u201d Anxiety is a heavy burden, an encompassing distraction that can take your eyes away from the only thing worthy of your focus: The Kingdom of God. This Kingdom - the beautiful wide new world Jesus is building for his people to live in - is the only thing worthy of our attention. Anxiety sends us to the future, when the Kingdom is unfolding in the now. Dallas Willard writes that \u201cthe emphasis is on provision today for what we need for today. This is because God is always present today, no matter which day it is. His reign is the Eternal Now.\u201d

So let\u2019s take a moment now, in this present moment, to become aware of the God who is in the now. Maybe you want to take a deep breath, feel your feet on the floor in front of you, and maybe you just want to hold your hands out in front of you.

\u201cGod, my life is not my own. My future is not my own. You are the Father who knows my every need. Thank you that I can lay down all that I cannot control into Your hands, which are strong enough to carry me.\u201d

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Notes
1. Willard, 261.

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