The Heart of Any Problem

Reflections for this date are based on the following scripture passages:
Luke 10	Luke 11	Luke 12	Exodus 27	Exodus 28	Psalms 33

In Luke 12:22-24, Jesus said, "Therefore I tell you, don't worry about your life, what you will eat; or about the body, what you will wear. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they don't sow or reap; they don't have a storeroom or a barn; yet God feeds them. Aren't you worth much more than the birds?" He follows this thought in verse 31 by saying, "But seek His kingdom, and these things will be provided for you." What is Jesus saying here? Are we not to work or make effort to provide food and clothing for ourselves and our families? How, then, will God provide us these things?

Jesus said these things following a conversation with a man who asked him to be an arbiter between him and his brother concerning the division of their inheritance. Such issues can be all-consuming as one gets caught up in the unfairness of what the other is doing to them and the money that could be theirs but is unjustly being withheld from them. Following the conversation with the man about his inheritance Jesus told a parable of a rich man who was consumed with building up his wealth. He wasn't interested in helping anyone else with it. His only concern was to amass wealth.

It was following the conversation about inheritance and the parable of the rich amassing wealth that Jesus told His disciples not to worry about material things. He wasn't teaching them not to labor for their necessities but to be careful that this pursuit not consume them. Their first concern, He told them, was to seek His kingdom. If they did this God would bless their efforts to provide the necessities of life.

The question Jesus leaves with us is, "What do I treasure?" It should not be a difficult question to answer, though it may be difficult to admit. It doesn't require too much thought to recognize what we devote the majority of our thoughts and time and money toward. Whatever that is will be the answer to the question, "What do I treasure?" If we do not treasure God's kingdom the things we do treasure will always be a worry to us in our efforts to obtain them. But Jesus tells us that if we will seek first His kingdom all else will be unimportant enough to merit our worry. For “the heart of every problem is the problem in the heart.”