This verse comes from Matthew chapter 6, in the middle of one of Jesus’ teachings known as ‘The sermon on the mount.’ It’s the same sermon that contains the ‘golden rule’ – in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you. (Matthew 7:12).
The verse above is intended to be a comfort to anyone who is wrapped up in worries and anxieties – a reminder that God knows all your real needs, and will provide for you in due time – and that spending all your time worrying about what might come about only prevents you from enjoying what God might be doing for you right now.
It’s also a provocation that God is meant to be at the centre of life – occupying a bigger place in our hearts than our everyday wants and needs. Spend time with the Father, and he will put things in the proper perspective. I’ve used the New International Version of the Bible, and I missed out a short section in the middle – the full verse runs as follows:
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
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