Surrender · “Let Go to Receive”
Consider the Lilies
Meet anxiety about the future by turning to the present — observing nature provided for without striving, and releasing the grip of worry into trust in God’s care.
Consider the lilies in brief: Catch the anxious spin about the future and name it. Then look — at the birds, who “sow not. yet your heavenly Father feedeth them”; at the lilies, who “toil not, neither do they spin.” Let it reframe how much you are held. Seek ye first the kingdom — put God first, let provision follow. Then come back to today: “Take therefore no thought for the morrow.” Release the worry; trust the care that clothes the grass.
What it is
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addresses worry directly. He tells those listening to stop being consumed by anxiety about provision — food, drink, clothing, the unknown future — and points them, instead, to the natural world, where life is sustained without striving: “Behold the fowls of the air. your heavenly Father feedeth them” (Matthew 6:26), and “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin” (Matthew 6:28).
The practice he gives is a turn of attention: from the anxious projection into tomorrow, back to the present and to a trust that the same care that clothes the grass holds you. As a practice this is a release into trust.
Worry pulls the mind into an imagined, uncertain future; Jesus redirects it to what is actually here — the birds, the flowers, this day’s bread — and to the present moment, since “the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself” (Matthew 6:34).
It is letting go of the grip of anxious control and resting in providence. This is the Gospel root of the present-moment, anti-worry, trust-based strand that later contemplatives and teachers elaborate (see Cross-links).
The Method
Drawn faithfully from Matthew 6:25-34 (short quotes, KJV):
- Notice the anxious thought and name it. Jesus opens with the diagnosis: “Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat. nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on” (Matthew 6:25). When you catch yourself spinning anxiously about provision or the future, recognise it as the worry he is addressing. (“Take no thought” in older English means do not be anxious — not “stop thinking responsibly.”)
- Turn to the natural world and observe. Deliberately look: “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap. yet your heavenly Father feedeth them” (Matthew 6:26); “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin” (Matthew 6:28). Spend a moment actually attending to living things that are provided for without striving — birds, plants, the grass.
- Let the comparison reframe your worth and your worry. Jesus draws the conclusion: even Solomon “in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these” (Matthew 6:29), and “Are ye not much better than they?” (Matthew 6:26). The point is to release the assumption that anxiety is what holds your life together.
- Reorder your priority. “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). Put attention on God first; let provision follow rather than lead.
- Return to this day. “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself” (Matthew 6:34). Bring attention back from tomorrow to today. Meet only what is actually in front of you now. (Sourcing note: this is a faithful summary of Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 6:25-34, offered for understanding. The text quoted is the public-domain KJV; “take no thought” renders a phrase meaning “do not be anxious” / “do not worry.”)
Source & Lineage
The passage (Matthew 6:25-34) is part of the Sermon on the Mount, immediately following Jesus’s teaching that “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24) — anxiety about provision is the shadow of trusting in wealth rather than God.
A close parallel appears in Luke 12:22-31. The teaching belongs to the same sermon as the Lord’s Prayer and its petition for “daily bread,” and shares the present-trust, kingdom-first orientation of “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21).
From this root grew the wide Christian and contemplative lineage of present-moment trust and self-abandonment to providence — most directly de Caussade’s “sacrament of the present moment” and the practice of the presence of God, and, in the broader stream, modern present-moment and acceptance-based approaches to anxiety. This file holds the Gospel original (see Cross-links).
Common refinements
Reading “take no thought” as “be irresponsible.” The phrase means do not be anxious, not do not plan or work. Jesus is releasing the grip of worry, not endorsing neglect of duties.
- Skipping the actual looking. The practice asks you to behold and consider — to genuinely attend to birds, plants, the present scene. Reciting the verse without the attentional turn misses its mechanism.
- Forcing calm. The aim is to release into trust, not to manufacture a feeling of peace by willpower. Trust is allowed to grow from the turning of attention.
- Treating clinical anxiety as merely spiritual. This contemplative turn supports wellbeing but is not a treatment for an anxiety disorder; it complements, it does not replace, professional care.