A PRAYER TO START
This prayer of adoration of our Father’s longstanding faithfulness and supplication to remain grounded and living upon his evident and experienced history of creating and saving, is adapted from a portion of Psalm 119. Begin your time praying it 3xs…
Forever, Father, your word is permanent in the heavens and upon the earth. Your faithfulness can be seen in every generation that has walked this planet. You created what I stand upon now, and are as steady as my footing. By your intention everything I see, hear, touch, smell and taste has been spoken by you to life, all of creation follows your order. If your steadfast revelation had not been my delight, surely I would have thought this world out of control. Yet I will never forget your words and your ways. By them life past and life present and life future is sure. I am yours! Save me from thinking myself anything less. The affections of this world look to lure me away from what I know is true, but my only concern is your plans for me. I have seen the limitations of the things I desire, but with you, the horizons cannot contain your commands! Amen.
DIVING INTO THE DETAILS
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21) What do you treasure, hold on to tightly and seek after at great expense? Security—through financial resources, affirmation or relationships? Comfort—through financial resources, lack of conflict, or limited responsibility? Success or approval—through financial resources, achievements or working hard?
Even our “religious” acts—giving, participating in community, serving, reading our bible, prayer, etc.—often are done in pursuit of what we treasure. Perhaps, without articulation, we believe that doing such things will provide for us security, comfort, success and approval; from our community and from God. Yet Jesus would say that we “cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24), or we, “cannot serve God and what we treasure”. But why is that? Are not the things we seek necessary for life?
The commentator and scholar, John Nolland (309), observes the irony of grasping what we treasure, even in some small degree. While it makes sense that those in desperate situations would desire relief, it is the ones who are relatively better-off that suffer for want of what they already possess,
“The situation of those whose material condition is marginal requires no comment, but those who are better placed materially are generally no less characterized by anxiety about their needs, either because their own perception of what their basic needs are has expanded to match their material circumstances or because the very fact of wealth makes for a sense of insecurity about successfully retaining hold of it.”
Jesus' statement, “I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.” (Matthew 6:25) is thus spoken to those like you and I, who, while having real needs like sustenance and protection from the elements, live anxious for things unnecessary for life or fear that such necessities will be removed from our finger tips—or bank accounts. To those like us, anxious in life for things we treasure, Jesus gently rebukes with the words “O you of little faith” (Matthew 6:30).
How do faith and anxiousness relate? Is Jesus saying that if I just believed more, then I would not be so uneasy or restless in life? After all, isn’t faith a feeling of certainty? Many of us think so, but that is not what Jesus says. Read the last several verses of Matthew 6 again, verses 25-33.
Where does Jesus look to find faith? He looks at the birds scattered across the sky and chirping and comping away in the fields. He also considers the flowers that grow unkept by human care that are as persistent in their sprouting as they are beautiful in their design. Faith is not blind. Rather, faith is a perspective that allows us to see the world in a different way, the “lamp of the body” which allows the entire “body to be full of light” (Matthew 6:22). To lack faith then, is to be blind. To fail to see the world which God upholds around us and thus he upholding us at that very moment.
Faith is seeing, experiencing, and remembering whose is the world, and thus whose we are. You see, faith is experienced history, not wishful conjecture. The stories of God’s salvation have names, dates and places. Including your own. These memories of salvation coupled with the very existence of birds in the sky and lilies in the field, remind us—when we see with an eye of faith—that God indeed is the one who provides all we need. He is the one that is our treasure. Thus Jesus’ exhortation to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33) is not a call to suppress our needs, even desires, but to see them, view them, through the reality of his kingdom. To see them in right relation to him and ourselves (that’s what “righteousness” means).
What is that right orientation? That God knows you, that God designed you, that God cares for you, and that all that you need to live and flourish is yours in him. The birds do not strategize to produce their food, nor do the lilies work diligently to fashion their own beauty; thus, they do not fret. Jesus is saying, as he did in the beatitudes, that already is yours all you need in provision and design, not by gaining but simply by seeking. Yet we who are more valuable than the precious birds and flowers who God adorns and provides, do almost everything out of motivation to gain that which we treasure; though we already possess it in Christ.
Jesus is not naïve. He knows the world we live in is hard, “Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matthew 6:34). Which is why we need faith to live a life presently with a different confidence than circumstances, emotions, and desires dictate. A faith that has history, faith that allows us to see God’s abounding grace and power in front of us, for us, today. That is why Jesus teaches us to pray a prayer which aligns our sight with how the world really works,
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our bread and help us not fear its loss tomorrow.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors,
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
“your heavenly Father knows that you need them all,” those things that you and I treasure. In him, you will find what you seek; not in the actions of religion or the efforts of survival. In his kingdom we are given what we need today with surety that tomorrow we will have the same. In his kingdom we are forgiven when we wrong and ones who can forgive when wronged. In his kingdom we are not lead blindly into traps, and never left to fend for ourselves against the prowling predator. In his way on earth as it is in heaven, we do indeed get something from God which has not been pursued by worry: already blessed are those whose faith lets them see the kingdom is theirs even now.
DEVELOPING DISCERNMENT
Because, as Jeremiah so aptly says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” we must be ones who do the heart work of discerning where our treasure is. As we begin more and more, as slow as it may feel, to live by faith, a different kind of sight, or sight of something different. Don’t skip this part. Information is of little use in quickening a transformed life if we are undiscerning people. Take the time to thoughtfully answer these questions, and maybe use them as conversation starters in Gospel Community, at work or in your home. Doing so will pay dividends in the long run!
- What is it that you treasure? Think about the thing that you hold tightly to and sacrifice to obtain.
- How do you use your faith to gain this treasure? Think about what actions you do and what you expect from them. Also, consider where you go in the midst of anxiousness and the religious actions do you do when you feel you are missing what you treasure.
- What graces have you been blind to in the anxiousness for what you need?
- Think about the conversations you have about faith with those outside our faith family, even those who might not know, love and follow Jesus. What it is that they are seeking from “church” or God and have yet to find?
- In what ways might Jesus exhortation help them see what is already true in their relation to God?
A PRAYER TO CLOSE
Eugene Peterson prays in recognition of Jesus’ plea to let faith lift from us anxiousness; not blindly but because we have indeed experienced God’s salvation and know what he desires for you and I. Pray…
Dear God, when my shoulders droop and my steps drag, speak your encouraging word. It is not, I know, your will that I carry burdens of anxiety: lift them from my shoulders so that I may lift my eyes to you in glad faith. Stock my mind with the remembrance of your victories, your resurrection ways among your children, that I may confidently trust your power to save me in Jesus. In his name. Amen.