Have you ever felt persistently anxious, no matter how many times you reflect on God’s promises? Your stressful thoughts are like obstinate zits on your soul’s face, unfazed by the poking and prodding of Romans 8:28 and every other passage about God’s sovereign care. Incessant recitations of “God’s working everything together for good” have left your fretful pimples sore and bleeding. Your worry is still right there. Defeated and exhausted, what should you do?
Do you just need to believe harder? Should you close your eyes, muster up some faith, and perform a spiritual judo move on your doubt? Are you anxious because you scrolled through Instagram for three minutes too long? If you’d just commit to a month-long break like Sally in your small group, would your social media fast transport you into emotional serenity? Or maybe your anxiety is a pride issue, and what you need to do is stop being a know-it-all and trust a sovereign God.
I certainly battle doubt. I’m guilty of anxiously scrolling past posts of other anxious people for unreasonable amounts of time. And my soul regularly clamors for authority that only belongs to God. But while addressing these areas has occasionally curbed my anxiety, it often doesn’t.
Maybe you can relate. So what should we do?
I won’t pretend to offer a simple answer to such a difficult, multifaceted question. That’d be unrealistic and, honestly, just mean. But in Matthew 6:19–34, Jesus does offer another approach. Before he calls us to trust him, he tells us to treasure him.
Treasure God First
There’s nothing complicated about Jesus’s teaching in this passage, and there’s nothing complicated about its structure. In verses 19–24, Jesus wants us to treasure God, and in verses 25–34, Jesus wants us to trust God. Treasure and trust. Straightforward, right?
What I find fascinating, though, is how Jesus connects these two sections. After calling us to treasure God, he says, “Therefore . . . do not be anxious.” Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, therefore, trust God. That’s a curious way to put it.
There’s something about our treasure that either allows us—or doesn’t allow us—to trust God. If we treasure God, we can trust him. But if we treasure something else or someone else, we won’t trust God. Anxiety seems to swing on the hinge of this adverb: “Therefore.”
With just one word, Jesus makes sense of most of my anxiety—perhaps most of the world’s anxiety. It’s amazing what he does here. He takes these two threads of treasure and trust and weaves them together into one truth: if you’ll treasure God more than the cares of this world, then you can trust God through the cares of this world.
Why We Don’t Trust God
The opposite is also true: if you don’t treasure God more than the cares of this world, you won’t trust God through the cares of this world. Why is that? Because God hasn’t promised to protect our earthly treasures. As he works all things together for our good, he may withhold what we value most. We may lose approval from others or success at work so he might conform us to his Son’s image (Rom. 8:28–29).
If you will treasure God more than the cares of this world, then you can trust God through the cares of this world.
Recount God’s promises, scale back on social media, know your place before God—these are all helpful practices. But if we don’t treasure God, we’ll never trust him. It’s not that we’ve forgotten God’s promises to care for us. We know we can trust him. The problem is we treasure our idols more than God. And since God hasn’t promised to protect our idols, what’s most valuable to us is vulnerable. Protecting what we value then becomes a full-time job. Just ask Madonna:
I’m always struggling with [fearing inadequacy]. I push past one spell of it and discover myself as a special human being and then I get to another stage and think I’m mediocre and uninteresting. And I find a way to get myself out of that. Again and again. My drive in life is from this horrible fear of being mediocre. And that’s always pushing me, pushing me. Because even though I’ve become Somebody, I still have to prove that I’m Somebody. My struggle has never ended and it probably never will.
Feeling special, that’s her treasure. And since she’s gifted musically, each lyric and each melody serve as bodyguards—fearfully protecting the throne of her heart.
You and I aren’t that different.
If your treasure is on earth, your emotional stability is unsafe. Matthew 6:25 then reads for you, “Therefore, be anxious about your life. Be anxious about what you will eat and what you will drink. Be anxious about your body and what you will put on. Is not your earthly treasure hanging by these earthly threads?”
But if we treasure God, we can trust him when we’ve proven unsuccessful and unloved, when we lose comfort, power, and control. How? We already have everything we need in Christ. Our treasure is safe.
Treasures in Heaven
Instead of forcing yourself to trust a God who isn’t protecting your earthly idols, it’s more effective to identify those false gods first. See how Jesus satisfies your desires, then reflect on God’s promises to protect your heavenly treasure.
If your treasure is on earth, your emotional stability is unsafe.
When my personal success is in jeopardy, I’m prone to anxiety. So I need to reflect on how Jesus has been successful for me, how he’s been perfect in my place. Then, after painstakingly moving my treasured success from earth to heaven, I can finally breathe, knowing nothing on earth can touch my treasure in heaven.
Fighting anxiety this way isn’t easy. You can’t pull through the drive-thru, order a Bible verse with a side of inspiration, and speed away without anxiety. It takes time to identify your earthly treasures. You’ve got to park and get out of the car to see how Jesus offers himself as a better, more reliable treasure. But if you’ll do that—if you’ll treasure him—you’ll be able to trust him.
Treasure God; therefore, don’t be anxious.