Mt 6:24-34
[Jesus said to his disciples:] 24“No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
25“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? 27Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? 28Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. 29But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them.
30If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’ 32All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33But seek first the kingdom [of God] and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. 34Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”
Look at the birds of the air...: Two birds are perched on a tree, watching people pass by, rush here and there, run to and fro, come and go endlessly. One bird observes, “How troubled these people seem, always on the go.”
“Indeed,” the second bird agrees, “they must not have a God like us!”
John Denver has a song that says: “Sweet, sweet surrender, live, live without care/ Like a fish in the water, like a bird in the air.”
Jesus is not talking about being carefree or having a happy-go-lucky attitude. He is not proposing the dictum, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” He is speaking of abandonment, trust in God, and surrender to God. What is that? It is the attitude of Job who, after losing everything, exclaims: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!” It is to expect nothing, to be grateful for what is there, to live according to one’s means, to desire less, and to need only the basic. It is to be free.
There is still work to be done, though: seek first the kingdom of God. That is a great task, a totally different attitude and disposition. When we have found God, everything else is secondary and means nothing. Let go of everything once in a while and you will discover and feel that, indeed, God will provide.