Seek First

The other day, I was reading that beautiful ‘Do Not Worry’ passage in Matthew 6.  To paraphrase and sum it up: Jesus says, “If you’re seeking my kingdom today, right now in every moment, you don’t need to worry about the future.  It will take care of itself and you will have what you need.”

God created this world to sustain life for generation after generation, and He put us in charge of stewarding its ability to continue doing so.  In all our modern progress, and often times, our attempts to live life independently of God, we’ve kinda lost sight of this incredible gift and responsibility.

In discussions around sustainability, there can be great temptation for worry and fear about the future.  There can be lots of focus on what’s going wrong and what is so unsustainable about our current realities.  Some shudder and ask, ‘What happens when this system crashes?’

And that’s a valid question.  The Bible has a lot to say about what happens when the system crashes.  But even in the midst of prophetic passages that seem terrible and wrathful, there is great love underpinning it all.  And that love can move us past fear into faith-filled action.  With great hope, we need to ‘seek first’ His kingdom.

How do we do that?  Two other passages come to mind.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40).

^“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.  And what does the LORD require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

If we are truly drawing closer and closer to God, then our hearts are increasingly changed to love.  Not the emotion-based definition of the word that our culture seems to use most often, but rather the commitment-, sacrifice-, and action-based definition of love that Jesus used.  As we love, we begin to see more and more needs around us and are motivated to begin asking tough questions about our own choices.  As we begin to see the injustices underpinning so much of modern life – the unsustainable systems that many of us have been blinded to for years – we begin to make changes one at a time to live differently.  As we walk humbly, knowing fully well that we are nowhere near perfect ourselves, we begin to lovingly and mercifully encourage and empower others to begin living differently also, without judging them or condemning them.

Guilt and fear can never be a destination on our journey, or even a resting point. Getting stuck in guilt and fear can lead to all sorts of problems. Nor can they be weapons to use against other people.  Their only useful purposes are fulfilled if they are rooted in God’s love and open our eyes to some truth around us, moving us onward toward always seeking God’s kingdom of love and hope.