A simple message is always a puzzle to those who aren’t simple. What Jesus is saying here is “God looks after those who seek his kingdom, so seek and don’t worry about anything else.” But we’ll never be able to take this message to heart if we don’t possess Jesus’s own simplicity.
To be simple is to concentrate on our relationship with him. We slip out of spiritual communion when we complicate things, worrying and overthinking and insisting we know better than God. We get lost in the cares of the world, and we forget the promise of “much more.” Jesus compares us to the “birds of the air” (Matthew 6:26): their only goal is to obey the principle of life inside them. What principle is inside us? Jesus says that if we are rightly related to him, obeying the Spirit inside, God will look after our “feathers.”
To be simple is to grow where we are planted. “See how the flowers of the field grow,” Jesus says (v. 28). Many of us refuse to grow where we’re planted, and the result is that we never take root, never blossom fully. Jesus says that we shouldn’t go running after the things we think we need. If we obey the life God has given us, he will look after the rest.
To be simple is to consecrate each moment to God. Consecration involves setting ourselves aside for one particular thing—giving it our attention, dedicating our actions to it. We can’t consecrate ourselves to God once and be done with it. We must consecrate continually, each moment and every action. If we do, we will find ourselves absolutely free: free to do God’s work, free to live lives of amazing simplicity, free to set aside confusion, angst, and worry.
