Don't Be Anxious!

The robins have returned to our area. As I observe them in our yard, I think of this little poem I've read often through the years.

Overheard in an Orchard

Said the robin to the sparrow,

“I should really like to know,

Why these anxious human beings

Rush about and worry so.”

Said the sparrow to the robin,

“Friend, I think that it must be,

That they have no Heavenly Father,

Such as cares for you and me.”

~Elizabeth Cheney, 1859

Note: The sparrow was wrong. We do have a Heavenly Father who cares for us. It’s just that we don’t often realize we do! Neither do we pay attention to these words spoken by Jesus said in Matthew 6:25-34, ESV, emphasis added:

²⁵Therefore 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. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 

²⁶Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 

²⁸And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ³⁰But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

³¹Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ Or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the Gentiles [unbelievers] seek after all these things, and 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 added to you.

³⁴Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow…