Sermon on the Mount. Your Father Knows.

Prayer and Anxiety are linked.  What are we seeking, and how are we seeking it?  What are we worried about, and whom are we trusting with it?

Matthew 6.in part

7-15:  “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.  Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.  Pray then like this:  Our Father in heaven, hallowed is your name.  Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  For if you forgive others their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Quantity and Content.

Christian-religion-talk finds its way into our prayers.  If we listen to our prayer lives closely, I think we will begin to hear these empty phrases Jesus speaks of.  God is not counting our words.  There is no essay, or grading structure to our conversation with him.  We are to approach prayer with the understanding that God knows our needs before we even begin.  If we began with that understanding, wouldn’t we be affected?  Wouldn’t our prayers sound more like what Jesus suggests here as an outline for our prayers?  What do we need to learn and adopt from Jesus’ statements on this subject?

25-34:  “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.  Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air:  they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not of more value than they?  And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?  And why are you anxious about clothing?  Consider the lilies of the field, 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.  But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?  Therefore do not be anxious, saying ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the Gentiles seek after these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.  But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.  Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Analogy and Anxiety.

Is there something specific to this use of analogy?  What do lilies and birds tell us about what we get anxious over and how to deal with it?  Life throws curve balls.  How we handle them says something about our faith and trust in God.  We can measure our faith by how distraught we get when uncertain of what life has for us.  It also proves what we are seeking after.  What comes first?  The world or the kingdom?