Life is More than Food and You’re More than Birds and Grass
Luke 12:22 ¶ And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on.
Luke 12:23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.
Luke 12:24 Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!
Luke 12:25 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
Luke 12:26 If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?
Luke 12:27 Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Luke 12:28 But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!
There is a time that some people experience in their Christian walk where they really get this verse. I mean really get it. I mean when you realize, wow, God really is going to take care of every single thing I need!
You’ve heard the stories. Some of them have even happened at One Life. The stories where something horrible happens to a person, maybe even eventually ending in death, but at some point, they say “I’ve never been so close to the Lord.” or maybe, “I’d never give up how much I grew in my faith through this horrible thing.”
Jesus makes this comment about adding an hour to your life. “If you can’t do a small thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?” If you’ve ever been in a room with someone that is dying, to hang on for an extra hour is near impossible! But Jesus referred to it as a small thing. It’s a small thing for Jesus to sustain us for an hour.
Look at some birds. Even better, go buy a $4 bag of birdseed and just throw it out in your yard. You don’t need a fancy bird feeder for this. Watch and see how many birds show up in a day or so. There will be a zillion, and then there will be none. Why? Because they’ve moved on to another place full of birdseed.
Can you imagine the undertaking it takes for the Earth (and by Earth, I mean God’s mighty hand) to sustain the life of all of those birds every day? But they are so tiny and insignificant. Especially those starlings.
But you are more important than that. You are needed and loved by the Lord God Almighty who works to sustain your every need every hour, even the last.
And nothing in here was conditional on ‘how much faith we have.’ Yes, He says they have ‘little faith’ but that doesn’t hold back how important they are to God or how much He’ll take care of them. It’s unconditional.
Pray to fully grasp it and then pray to show it off to others. God’s got this. He already knows what it is, and He knows how to meet that need.
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