by Peeter Lukas
A few weeks ago I saw a robin slowly walking through my backyard, a welcome sighting of God’s planned spring that was not to be canceled or postponed. The robin had a questioning look on his face, as if he were wondering, “Here I am, I know the earth is filled with worms who’ve waited all winter to rise and fall into my mouth. Think. Think. Think. How can I find them with all this white stuff on the ground?” He then high-hopped over to a large pine tree.
“Think. Think. Think,” I thought, as the snow melted over the days that followed. Matthew 6:25 in the ESV reads, “…do not be anxious about your life…” The KJV puts it this way: “Take no thought for your life…” Jesus says in Matthew 6:25 not to be anxious about food or drink or your body and the clothes that you wear. You can’t live long without food or water, and your parents probably don’t like to see holes in your clothes. Curious words of our Lord. But are these commands even possible for us to do?
Jesus thinks so. He says that it’s useless to be anxious. Let’s try worrying, you and I, about something for the next 30 seconds………………..
So? Did anything change? Now look and answer Jesus’ question in Matthew 6:27 – “And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”
Writing on this same passage in the Connecting Points devotional two weeks ago, Tim McCormick said that Jesus “meant to gently chide us for our natural inclination to be anxious about a host of different things. I say gently because, in large part, his purpose was to encourage us to believe that God truly does abundantly care for his people.”
Referring to the birds, Jesus asks his disciples, “Are you not of more value than they?” [Matt. 6:26b]. We have an infinite, eternal, and unchangeable God. He’s bigger than the biggest big you can ever imagine. Maybe your Dad can talk to you about the infinity of God. His love is perfect, and perfectly able to feed birds. And He loves us perfectly, even more than He loves the bird I saw in my backyard. It was true in Jesus’ day, and it is true in ours.
Maybe your parents can read and explain to you these comforting old words from the Heidelberg Catechism:
Question #1 – What is your only comfort in life and in death?
That I am not my own, but belong —body and soul, in life and in death— to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.
And by the way, my hopping robin has been eating lots and lots of worms.
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