In Matthew 6:25-27 Jesus uses the picture of the birds to describe how God provides but worries don’t.
“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?”
The first thing to note in this passage is that life is important and life is more than food or clothes or drink. Jesus uses the picture of the birds as proof of how God works, but he adds that we are much more valuable than they are. So, if God provides for the birds, you better believe he provides for us.
Now let’s consider the birds and see how God provides for them. “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, yet your heavenly father feeds them.” What does a bird eat and how do they get what they eat? Birds eat worms and other things in the ground. Jesus said, “yet your heavenly father feeds them.” How does a bird find a worm? It walks around on the ground sticking its beak into the ground. God doesn’t hand deliver the worm to the bird, the bird goes to where the worms are. God made worms that live in the dirt. God gave birds beaks that allow them to dig in the dirt. How does a bird get a nest? The bird finds sticks and twigs and builds the nest out of the resources God created.
God provides the resources and the ability to utilize the resources. I’ve heard it said, God didn’t give Adam a chair or a table, God gave Adam trees. God didn’t just give Adam and Eve food, he created fruit trees that produce fruit that can be eaten. Then God told Adam and Eve to tend the garden.
Jesus says look, the birds don’t sow or reap or gather in barns like you do, but they don’t worry about tomorrow. Birds don’t store food for tomorrow, meaning they don’t plan and prepare for tomorrow and they also don’t worry about it. In contrast, people do prepare and plan and on top of it worry. The problem with worrying is that it doesn’t produce anything valuable or practical.
In Luke 12:25-26 Jesus said it like this,
“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?”
If worrying can’t produce something as simple as adding a single hour to your life, why would you do it? Wow. Tell me the last time worrying did anything good for you? When was the last time it brought about a great or minor benefit. And to be clear, anxiety is not a benefit. It’s funny how Jesus says worrying can’t produce life, but it can subtract from it.