We do not have a cold, distant deity sitting idly by, watching us worry and work. We have a heavenly Father who loves us more than he loves the birds, who cares for us more deeply than we do even for ourselves, and who wants us to know how deep his love is.

Hi. My name is David, and I’m an anxious person. In fact, just saying that makes me a little anxious.

Mostly, I worry about everything. I wake up worrying, and I go to sleep worrying, and in between, I worry some more. I even worry about worrying about the right things. What if I forget something and my family doesn’t have what they need when the time comes? What if, by my failure to worry, I lead us straight into hardship? What if I fail them?

It’s a miserable way to live, honestly. But it’s my way.

I know it’s not the way I’m meant to live. I worry about that as well. I need to change, but it’s hard. In this kind of world, how can one not be a little anxious all the time?

Who can save me from this body of death?

The Cure for Anxiety

The Bible, of course, isn’t silent in the face of anxiety. It’s well known that the most repeated command in scripture is “Do not fear.”

There is a whole section in the most famous sermon ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus addresses this issue. I’ve read it a thousand times. Maybe you have, too. But, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to point out something that has changed my life. I don’t mean to be hyperbolic (that’s an anxiety trait, I know), but it has made a bigger difference in my mental health than anything else ever has. And the thing is, it’s been there for thousands of years.

The key verse in this whole thing for me is Matthew 6:26. The ESV heading for this little section is “Do Not Be Anxious,” which, honestly, gives me anxiety. I like the CSB heading better: “The Cure for Anxiety.” That’s much less anxiety-inducing. Maybe the cure will work. Maybe it won’t. But that’s not up to me. So, let’s try it out, shall we?

Consider the Birds

Matthew 6:26 is such a simple verse. “Consider the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they?”

Tim Keller used to say that good preaching connects an intellectual truth to a sensory experience. Jesus was a good preacher, of course, so he knew this too. That’s what he did in this verse. We are anxious people, constantly worrying about provision. Will we have enough tomorrow? Will we be okay? The intellectual truth that God will care for us takes us only so far. We need some sensory experience to help us actually believe it.

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