CONSIDER THE LILIES
Jesus does not say, dissect the lilies, nor does He invite us to audit them with a clipboard and a balance sheet; He says, consider. Slow the mind. Steady the heart. Look long enough for the soul to catch up.
The lilies are not object lessons in effort but revelations of grace—quiet sermons rooted in ordinary soil, proclaiming the generosity of God without a single syllable spoken.
Jesus presses the question deeper when He says, “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 6:28–30).
The force of His teaching lies as much in what the lilies do not do as in what they are. They do not strive for legitimacy; they do not hustle for beauty; they do not anxiously justify their place in the field. They grow—because they were planted. They are clothed—because God clothes them. Their entire existence is a settled trust in the hand that placed them where they stand.
Here our worry is gently uncovered. Anxiety is rarely about fabric or food; it is about control. It assumes that provision must be earned, that covering depends on spinning, that worth is measured by output. Jesus overturns this assumption with a flower. Solomon’s splendor was accumulated; the lily’s beauty was bestowed. One was achieved; the other was given—and Christ declares the given to be greater.
The lilies expose legalism without raising their voice. They possess no résumé, keep no spiritual accounts, and yet they are arrayed in a glory that outshines kings. This is the grammar of the Kingdom: not wages but gift, not anxious compliance but confident trust. The lilies do not earn their covering; they receive it daily and effortlessly and faithfully.
Then comes the tender correction—O you of little faith. Not faithless, but faith still learning to rest. Faith that believes it must assist God with its own spinning; faith that fears tomorrow will expose today’s insufficiency. Jesus answers that fear by reminding us who God is. If the Father lavishes care on grass destined for the oven, how much more on children destined for glory.
The lilies are not reckless; they are secure. They grow toward the sun because life draws them there, not because fear drives them. So it is with us when grace finally persuades us that we are already clothed—in Christ, in righteousness not our own, in a care that does not fluctuate with our performance.
To consider the lilies is to unlearn the habit of self-provision and to remember our place as sons and daughters. It is to see that the Kingdom is not sustained by our spinning but by our trusting. The field still blooms—and so does the soul that rests in the Father’s care.
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Father, still my anxious striving; teach me to trust Your provision. Clothe me in Christ, root me in grace, and let my life grow in peace. Amen.
BDD
