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I love to read, and I love to travel. In fact, I love to read while I travel. While I enjoy holding a real book in my hands, I also appreciate using my phone as a Kindle when I’m on an airplane. It saves space, lets me read in low light, and no one can see what I’m reading. My reading selections vary widely—from romance to current fiction and nonfiction to theology to the Bible. When I read nonfiction and the Bible, I often highlight passages on my phone that stand out to me, and interestingly, Amazon saves this data to track what readers are interested in. It’s a bit creepy, but also intriguing.
Do you know what the most highlighted Bible verses are on Kindle (according to Amazon)? It’s not the 23rd Psalm, the Beatitudes, or even the Parable of the Prodigal Son. No, the most highlighted verses are Philippians 4:6-7:
“Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Are you surprised? I was, too. It shows something about us: we are a people who worry. Surprising, perhaps, but true. Yet, these verses also offer a comforting invitation to bring our worries to God, trusting in the peace that only God can provide.
Worry is also on Jesus’ mind in today’s Gospel reading from Matthew. This passage is part of the Sermon on the Mount, one of Jesus’ longest and most powerful teachings, filled with wisdom for his followers. In the midst of all this instruction, Jesus pauses to address worry—something many of us struggle with at one time or another.
At first glance, Jesus’ message seems simple: don’t worry. But, as with much of Jesus’ teaching, it’s not always as straightforward as it appears. The Greek word for “worry” can also mean “anxiety,” as in, “don’t be anxious about your life.” Easier said than done, right?
Jesus isn’t addressing anxiety as a medical condition here; that kind of anxiety requires professional help. Instead, Jesus speaks of the more everyday anxieties—the kind that keep us up at night. The “what ifs” that crowd our minds: What if I don’t get that job? What if it snows? What if something bad comes back in my lab reports? What if I forgot to turn the iron off? What if I can’t pay my bills this month? What if I can’t stop worrying about worrying? These are the worries that spiral, often with no real solution.
Jesus also isn’t advocating for a “Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be” mentality. He’s not telling us not to plan for the future. In fact, being prepared and taking care of things like our health and finances is wise. But there’s a difference between planning and worrying. The world provides plenty of reasons to worry—global pandemics, climate change, political upheaval, and even uncertainties within the Church. There is no shortage of things to be anxious about.
Yet Jesus offers us a different way: He says, “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?” Instead, He points to the birds and wildflowers: “Look at the birds of the air,” He says. “they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matthew 6:25-26). If God cares for the birds, how much more will God care for us?
Jesus invites us to choose trust. He’s not saying life will be free from hardship or suffering—we know that life brings its share of loss and struggle. But Jesus offers a way through those difficulties where worry doesn’t dominate our hearts and minds. He invites us to trust in the God who loves us, who promises to provide for us—even if we don’t know how or when.
Remember when Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.” (John 14:1). Trusting in God doesn’t mean life will be easy, but it does mean we don’t have to carry the weight of the world alone. The bad thing is never the last thing.
Today is Thanksgiving, and I can’t help but feel thankful. Even with all the challenges we face, I recognize how blessed I am. Our world may not be perfect—there is so much that needs our attention, so much that is broken—but when I reflect on my life and the lives of those close to me, I realize that the gifts we’ve received far outweigh the struggles. We live longer and healthier lives than previous generations could have imagined. We have more opportunities than they did, and even our comforts—like electricity—are things we often take for granted. (until we don’t have them, like during last week’s storm).
But for us as Christians, Thanksgiving isn’t just about giving thanks for our material blessings and our good fortune. It’s about thanking God because God is God. Whether times are good or bad, our thankfulness is rooted in the unchanging nature of God. This is core to our faith: God is faithful, even when we are not.
Take, for example, the great hymns of the Church. Many of them were written in times of deep personal loss. The hymn It Is Well with My Soul was penned by Horatio Spafford after he lost four daughters in a shipwreck. Similarly, Now Thank We All Our God, which we’ll sing at the end of this service, was written by Martin Rinkart during the devastating Thirty Years’ War and the plague that ravaged Europe. Despite the pain and suffering, these hymns overflow with thanksgiving. They are testaments to the faith of Spafford and Rinkart, who chose to give thanks even in the darkest moments. They knew that the bad thing is never the last thing.
God is God, even in the toughest times. So, we too can give thanks, even in the midst of our struggles and uncertainties. I don’t know all the worries you carry—whether health concerns, relationship issues, or fears about the future—but I do know this: Jesus invites us to lay those worries down, to trust in God, and to choose thanksgiving in the midst of it all. This isn’t easy. It probably wasn’t easy for Spafford or Rinkart, but through their faith and the writing of hymns, they found strength and hope. We, too, can find strength by showing up, by worshiping God—even when we’re at our lowest or just aren’t feeling it.
The future may be uncertain, but the one who holds the future is trustworthy. So, let’s choose trust. Let’s choose peace. Let’s choose to live in the Kingdom of God, knowing that God’s love for us is the greatest gift we’ll ever receive. And with that, we can say, “Now thank we all our God.”