25"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
28"So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31"Therefore do not worry, saying, "What shall we eat?' or "What shall we drink?' or "What shall we wear?' 32For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
I am a worrier. I worry about things way too much. If for some reason I think there is a chance that something could go wrong, I worry about it. I am sometimes reminded of this verse that I shouldn't worry. But as I read through this very carefully now, I wonder if the message here really is simply to not worry, or just to not worry about the small stuff? Though I have to admit that Jesus' perspective of the small stuff is very different from mine.
Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink. God takes care of these things for birds and He cares for us even more than birds. Do not worry about your body, what you will wear. Just as God clothes the fields even more beautifully than we could possibly clothe ourselves, He can do a much better job of clothing us than we can. Do not worry about your physical attributes, your stature, for there is nothing you can do about it. God knows what we need and will take care of all our needs if we but seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
But Jesus is saying there is more to life than food and water. There is more to the body than clothing. You do not need to worry about food, water, and clothing. Those who do not know God worry about these things. But we who know God have no need to worry about these things. But there are other things we may worry about, as he says there is plenty of trouble to worry about for today. So yes, there is still stuff left for us to worry about.
So what is the big stuff that we should worry about, and what is the small stuff that we shouldn't worry about? Basically, I think Jesus is saying here that we should leave to God anything He can take care of for us, anything He is better at than us, anything we have no control over, and anything that is in the future -- basically the entire list of things I normally worry about. That pretty much takes care of worries I have of meeting my needs, how well something could turn out, health concerns, and how things will go tomorrow, etc.
So what is left? What can't God do for us? He has given us the freedom of choice. We must choose to seek God and His righteousness ourselves. This He cannot do for us. This we are poor at, and is indeed something to worry about. How do we seek God and His righteousness? Jesus just outlined it throughout these last couple of chapters: recognize your blessings, let your blessings shine for others to see, follow and teach the commandments, reconcile your differences with others, remove yourself from whatever causes you to sin, do not do anything that would cause others to sin, say what you mean and mean what you say, do more than is expected of you, love your enemies, do not seek earthly rewards when you do charitable deeds, pray, or practice self denial for God, treasure only the things from God, take in only goodness, and serve only God. Yes, these are all difficult to do. But Jesus also reminded us to just take one day at a time. Do now worry how you will handle some of these things that may come up tomorrow. Just take care of today's troubles today.
Does that mean I should just sit back and let God take care of everything else? Why should I hold a job? God will provide for me. Why go to a doctor for checkups? God will take care of me. Why try to make something nice? God can do a better job than I can anyway. But the key is: God will provide for you, but how does He do it? He may be providing you with food, shelter, clothing, etc. through the skills He has given you to hold a particular job. He may be providing you health, education, protection, etc. through skills He has given other people to serve you. God oftentimes makes things beautiful through the talents He has given you and others. We are not God's masters who just sit back and wait for God to lavish His good will upon us, but we are His servants who carry out His wishes for our good and for the good of those around us. Jesus is not saying you don't need to do anything for yourself. He is just saying to not worry about it. Keep your eyes open and you will see how God provides you with what you need.
So yes, I do worry about all the wrong things. I do need to stop worrying about those things, and hand those worries over to God. I need to get things into perspective and realize what is the big stuff and what is the small stuff. God will take care of the small stuff for me if I just make sure I work on the big stuff for Him, at least one day at a time.