Thanks for All Matthew 6:25-34 Thankgiving

Jesus' invitation to live in faith and trust is deceptively simple.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink,^ or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?" Matthew 6:25

I didn't know just how deceptively simple those words were until I became a parent 7 years ago. It was Thanksgiving weekend when we first found out. It was and still is simply wonderful and intensely frightening to be a dad; to now see the 3 lives that God has put into hands in trust.

I didn't know real worry in my life until that moment. I still know that worry.

The first people to hear these words weren't hearing them in Middle America. Jesus spoke these words to a crowd gathered to hear him teach, see him heal, and hoping to be healed themselves by his touch. Jesus told them,

26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

Jesus was boldly speaking about the value of human life in God's eyes in a time when human life was cheap in the eyes of the world. The people of Israel were being played with very cynically by everyone one in power. King Herod, the temple leaders, the scribes and pharisees, the Sadducees, and even the Romans made demands of the people. Petty crimes and great insurrections, they were dealt with quickly. Beatings and death in the most egregious cases were the end for rebels. Life was cheap to the people in power and everyone had seen it. And Jesus announced something different to the crowd.

In God's eyes each person had value. In God's eyes each one of you here today has value and worth. In God's eyes each person on earth regardless of age or size or status or color or ethnicity has immeasurable worth and value. You were made in God's image after all. You were shaped by a creator who is still eager to be part of your life in all dimensions .

For that I give thanks this thanksgiving.