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Jesus concludes His comparison of treasures in heaven and treasures on earth with a simple statement – you cannot serve God and wealth. He then goes on to challenge the pursuit of wealth by saying, “Do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” (Matthew 6:25) Interestingly, the life Jesus is speaking of is not the day-to-day life which would have been rendered in Greek as zoe (the totality of life) or perhaps even bios (physical life) but rather psyche (the soul, the inmost being of an individual.) Jesus is addressing the spiritual and eternal aspect of life found only in human beings. And what He is saying is to not worry about the things of this world but focus on the things of God.

The Greek word usually translated as being worried or anxious – merimnao – actually means, at its root, divided, distracted, or torn apart. And therein lie our anxious thoughts and worries. Worry is when our minds are torn apart, divided, and pulled in different directions by a situation or circumstance or thoughts that don’t align with our expectations. Lack of information, poor information, past experiences that have shaped our thinking processes, and a host of other variables cause our brains to kick into overdrive trying to make sense of the nonsense or, at the very minimum, look for the best path to mental and emotional peace and safety. However, peace is NOT the ultimate result of worry.

Peace comes when we focus totally and completely on Jesus. As we read in Isaiah 26:3, “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” Jesus said it this way in Matthew 6:33, “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

So, how do you find peace in a world of worry? Follow with wisdom and understanding Matthew 6:33-34. First of all, focus your full and undivided attention on Jesus and His Kingdom through His righteousness and all of the things that might distract you will no longer be your concern, but God’s and He will provide the things you need.

Secondly, don’t be distracted by the things that are looming large on your horizon. They may or may not come, but that’s not your concern because

you’re not staring at them – you’re eyes are focused on Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith, and He will provide all you need today AND tomorrow.

Transccript:

Pip: From The Back Porch, where the questions worth sitting with tend to be the ones that keep you up at night — like why worry feels so productive when it never actually is.

Mara: Today we’re following Bob through Matthew 6, tracing what Jesus actually meant when he told his followers not to worry — and what the Greek behind that command reveals about the mechanics of anxiety itself.

Pip: Let’s start with what peace looks like in a world that’s very committed to worry.

Mara: The post opens in Matthew 6, where Jesus has just drawn a line between serving God and serving wealth — and then pivots to something that sounds almost counterintuitive: stop worrying about the basics of survival.

Pip: And the word Jesus chose for “life” in that command turns out to matter a great deal. It’s not zoe or bios — the Greek words for living existence or physical life — but psyche, the soul, the inmost self.

Mara: The post puts it directly: “Jesus is addressing the spiritual and eternal aspect of life found only in human beings. And what He is saying is to not worry about the things of this world but focus on the things of God.”

Pip: So the command isn’t just practical advice about groceries. It’s aimed at something deeper — the part of you that carries the weight long after the immediate problem is solved.

Mara: And the Greek word for worry itself reinforces that. The word is merimnao, and at its root it means divided, distracted, or torn apart. Worry isn’t a focused problem-solving state — it’s the mind fragmenting under competing pulls.

Pip: Which is a remarkably accurate description of what actually happens. You’re not thinking through the problem; you’re being pulled apart by it.

Mara: The post draws on Martha in Luke 10 as a vivid illustration — she’s so distracted by preparations that she misses Jesus in the room. The application is direct: worry doesn’t resolve the tension, it just consumes the attention that could be fixed on something steadier.

Pip: And peace, the post argues, isn’t the destination worry is trying to reach — it’s what becomes available when you stop trying to think your way there.

Mara: Isaiah 26:3 is the anchor: “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” The condition isn’t the absence of hard circumstances — it’s where the mind is fixed.

Pip: That’s the hinge. Anxiety is a divided mind; peace is a unified one. The prescription in Matthew 6:33 follows directly from the diagnosis.

Mara: The post closes with what it calls an extrapolated reading of those two verses: focus your full and undivided attention on Jesus and his kingdom, and the things looming on your horizon stop being your problem to solve — they become God’s concern, and he provides.

Pip: Which means the work isn’t elimination of worry by willpower. It’s redirection of attention — consistently, deliberately, toward something that doesn’t divide.

Mara: And that’s where the practical texture comes in: what fills the background of your day shapes the pathways your mind defaults to. The closing prayer puts it simply — a mind brought into unity by the Spirit within is a mind at peace.

Pip: The kind of peace that, as the post notes, doesn’t wait for the circumstances to resolve first.

Mara: A divided mind chasing peace through worry — and the counterintuitive move of fixing attention elsewhere entirely.

Pip: Next time, we’ll see what else is waiting on the back porch. Don’t worry about it.