Rev’d Caroline - [email protected], 01285 712467
Rev’d Vicky Falvey - [email protected]
From Rev’d Vicky - 07356 234248 – [email protected]
“Do Not Worry” — Learning to Live in Trust
In Matthew 6:25–34, Jesus speaks some of the most comforting—and challenging—words in all of Scripture: “Do not worry about your life.” He names the very things that so often weigh us down: food, drink, clothing, tomorrow. These are not small concerns. They are the daily realities that shape how we live, plan, and often, how we lose sleep. Jesus does not dismiss them. Instead, He invites us to see them differently.
Jesus points our attention to the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. Birds do not hoard barns of grain, and flowers do not labour over their appearance—yet God sustains them with care and beauty. When Jesus asks, “Are you not much more valuable than they?” He reminds us of a core truth: worry often comes from forgetting who we are and whose we are. We are beloved children of a loving Father, not forgotten creatures left to fend for ourselves.
This passage is not a call to passivity or irresponsibility. Jesus is not saying we should stop working, planning, or providing. Rather, He is addressing the anxious striving that comes from believing everything depends on us. Worry, Jesus says, cannot add a single hour to our lives. In fact, it often robs us of the life we already have. Anxiety narrows our vision until all we can see is what might go wrong, instead of what God is already doing.
At the heart of this teaching is a shift in focus: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” When God’s reign becomes our priority, everything else finds its proper place. This does not mean our needs disappear, but that they are held within God’s care rather than our fear. Trust replaces control. Faith replaces frantic effort. We learn to live one day at a time, receiving today as a gift instead of fearing tomorrow as a threat.
Jesus closes with words that feel especially relevant in uncertain times: “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” This is an invitation to presence. God meets us here, today. Grace is given daily, not in bulk for an imagined future. When we borrow tomorrow’s worries, we carry a weight we were never meant to bear.
As a church community, this passage calls us not only to personal trust, but to shared care. When we live free from anxiety, we become more attentive to one another’s needs. We become signs of God’s kingdom—a people who choose faith over fear, generosity over scarcity, and hope over worry.
May we hear Jesus’ words not as a gentle suggestion, but as a loving command rooted in God’s faithfulness. And may we learn, day by day, to rest in the assurance that our heavenly Father knows what we need—and is already at work.
Rev’d Vicky Falvey
Curate, St Mary’s Fairford
My day off is a Monday
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