Daily Devotional
"And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."
Matthew 6:28-29
Jesus escalates the argument. The birds are fed, which is provision. But the lilies are not merely fed, they are clothed with a beauty that surpasses even Solomon in all his royal splendor. And these flowers last barely a week before they are thrown into the oven. If God lavishes that kind of artistry on something dead by next Tuesday, consider what He will do for you.
You are made in His image. You are the object of His redeeming love. You are the one for whom He sent His Son to die. The lilies are beautiful, but they have no resurrection behind them. You do. The care God spends on a fading flower is only a faint picture of the care He has already proven toward you at the cross and the empty tomb.
This is why Jesus calls anxiety a faith problem and not a personality trait. To be consumed with worry over clothing while wearing the love of such a Father is to live beneath our standing. The cure is not to try harder to stop worrying, but to look long enough at the Father’s care that worry loses its grip.
Today's Challenge
Where are you living as though God's care for you were uncertain? How does the resurrection change the way you read your present uncertainty?
Prayer
Father, You clothe the fields with a beauty greater than Solomon's, yet I forget how much more You care for me. I am made in Your image, redeemed by Your Son, and I have His resurrection behind me. Forgive my little faith. Help me to look at Your care until my anxiety loosens its hold. Amen.
