The Passage I Keep Returning To

People sometimes ask if I have a favourite part of Scripture, and the honest answer is that I have one I keep returning to, which is a different thing. It is the part of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew where Jesus tells the crowd not to be anxious about their lives, and points them to the birds and the wildflowers that are cared for without striving.

I do not return to it because I have mastered it. I return to it because I have not. I am a person who plans, who lies awake running through what might go wrong, who carries a long list into most days. That passage does not tell me to stop caring. It tells me that worry has never once added a single hour to anyone's life, and that there is a Father who knows what I need before I ask. I find that I have to be reminded of this often, sometimes daily.