If I had to describe the dominant emotion of this year, I’d call it anxious. This year has been marked by bouts of intense collective uncertainty and rapid change as we’ve faced the initial, and then further, outbreaks of Covid-19. Between those bouts, the persistent hum of heightened tension about the pandemic locally and globally has become our soundtrack.
Here in New Zealand we have been in the enviable position of being Covid-free for long stretches. Though we’re currently in a state close to normal (albeit a normality awash with sanitiser, tracer apps and daily Ministry of Health updates), we are undeniably still living under a cloud. We know our world could change at any time.
Even before 2020, the world had become seriously anxiety-inducing. Alongside the usual stressors of life, modern sources, like perpetual connectivity, social media, faster pace of life and attention-grabbing headlines, mean we’re always swimming in a sea of potential anxiety.
But, for us who seek God in every shadow and crack, there is an invitation even in this.
For me an invitation towards non-anxiety came with considering the birds.
Back in March, my husband repaired and reattached a wooden bird feeder to our deck. In this spot overlooking manuka bush, we’ve previously not had much luck attracting birds. Perhaps the offerings of the bush were too good or the nearness of humans too frightening. Whatever it was that kept them away, that all changed during lockdown. Sparrows and wax eyes began regularly visiting, nibbling at our seed offerings. Many times they were right there outside the kitchen window, reminding us that the world was very much alive despite our isolation from people.
These regular avian visitors got me noticing and reflecting on birds. I soon realised that there was something quite Biblical about this. I was considering the sparrows, just as Jesus did!
This drew me to this passage in Matthew. It begins:
“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 clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”
Matthew 6: 25-27
From there Jesus contrasts his people with the wildflowers and with non-followers who run after material things. He culminates with the famous line “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (verse 33).
It struck me that in speaking about worry, Jesus was addressing one of life’s hardest struggles.
Anxiety might feel like knots in your stomach, a racing mind, inner conversations endlessly replaying. It might be a battle to sleep, hyper-alertness, constant edginess. For some it is a pervasive, all-encompassing state of being. Whether it’s at the level of severe disorder or ongoing background tension, anxiety seems unavoidable for many of us.
As I sat with this passage over the course of a few weeks, I began to sense God put his finger on something for me. Even when I’m not in the throes of major anxiety (thankfully something that hasn’t happened often), I’ve still let anxious thoughts and feelings be an accepted default state. I was struck that within Jesus’ teaching there’s a transformative invitation to move out of even the low-level anxiety we often accept as normal.
A few points stood out to me in the passage. Jesus draws attention to common, wild birds. They’re not productive. They don’t create food or wealth. They don’t have control over their lives. They are worth little. But they survive and find food, because God set up the world to feed them.
In comparison with a bird, a human is much more complex, capable and innately valuable. The same things God makes true for the birds are infinitely more true for us. God cares about us, the details, what we need, and he will provide. We have deep value apart from anything we can do or achieve.
For many of us, a trigger for anxiety is the feeling of not being in control. In the lives we’ve become accustomed to things usually seem pretty stable and so we’re used to thinking our lives are under our own control.
But in reality that stability and security is not as real as we think. That’s why a tiny microbe can upend our lives.
Jesus’ statement “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life” is as true for us as it was to his audience. We cannot find security in the world around us, nor in own ability to control.
Security instead comes from releasing the need to feel in control in order to be ok. In doing so we open ourselves to the truth that our only real security is in God, the one who cares for us infinitely more than birds.
I love the way Richard Foster unpacks the idea of seeking first the kingdom as a way of replacing anxiety with a still centredness:
And so I urge you to still every motion that is not rooted in the Kingdom. Become quiet, hushed, motionless until you are finally centered. Strip away all excess baggage and nonessential trappings until you have come into the stark reality of the Kingdom of God. Let go of all distractions until you are driven into the Core. Allow God to reshuffle your priorities and eliminate unnecessary froth. Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, ‘Pray for me that I not loosen my grip on the hands of Jesus even under the guise of ministering to the poor.’ That is our first task: to grip the hands of Jesus with such tenacity that we are obliged to follow his lead, to seek first his Kingdom.
Richard J. Foster, Freedom of Simplicity: Finding Harmony in a Complex World
Jesus himself is the ultimate model of a non-anxious presence. Imagine the weight of his mission, the needs on his heart and mind. But he never carried himself as one hurried or harried.
And this is what is offered to us too. The way of the Christ-follower is to be a beacon of serenity even in an anxiety-soaked world.
In Matthew 6, Jesus lights the way in which we are to set out face – the direction of his heavenly Father; a noticing, capable God; an affectionate, creative God; a generous, faithful God. The heartbeat of the passage is to turn and turn again in his direction.
Heavenly Father, though we live in a world awash with anxiety will you set us on a path towards a different way of being, towards being beacons of non-anxiety? Thank you for your care for us, your value of us, the security that is found in you. May you have a free hand to strip away excess baggage and distractions. May we grip the hands of Jesus tenanciously and follow his lead.
How are you affected by anxiety? What ways have you found to move towards the non-anxiety that Jesus offers? Did you notice an increased activity in the birds during the Covid-19 lockdown where you were?
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