Seek First His Kingdom

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6: 33 – 34

I have some news for you that might be “food for thought”. Did you know that the average person has 70,000 thoughts a day – more or less depending on how deep a thinker you are? (Are you thinking you have more, or less?)

And the interesting thing about this news is that according to research, the vast majority of our thoughts are useless, pure nonsense, and of little importance. Very few are actually focused on what is truly important or real at the moment.  In fact, some researchers estimate that 70 to 80% of them are negative.

And this is the really interesting part – they believe that 98% of our thoughts are exactly the same as the ones we had the day before. What? 98% are the same ones I had yesterday and probably last week???  (All of this fascinating news is according to the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging and I have no idea how they figured this out or how many people they tested. I’m just taking their word for it! They must have thought it was news we needed to think about!)

If this is true, how much time and energy we waste as we think the same, insignificant thoughts over and over! If we could only let our minds rest in Him and be focused more on the joys of life, on the beautiful creations around us, and on what we can do to love others. But more importantly we could spend time with God and think about what He desires for our lives.

So many thoughts in one day. Shouldn’t our Creator and Sustainer of Life occupy at least some of them? How sad to think that He gives us life and all the blessings it entails, and some never give Him a thought – ever.  Can you imagine?

All this information makes us reflect on what we spend our days thinking about and what seems most important to us, doesn’t it?

But there’s more from all this research. Perhaps we could call it the good news and the bad. The good news is that some scientists feel that we have the potential to transform the person that we are “by changing the habitual thoughts of the mind”. They believe we can train our brains to think differently, but the bad news is that it will take much time and effort with professionals to do so.  Hhmmm!

But I think we know even better news – there’s a much better way! We know the One who can change us and transform our minds, and it doesn’t take an expert working with us. Our amazing God can! He can change our hearts and help us to become grateful individuals who focus on Him, His blessings to us, and how we can share those blessings with others.

This verse from Matthew was spoken by the expert of the heart and mind, Jesus Christ Himself. He reminds us that all our concerns will be met if we seek God first and His kingdom. We don’t have to worry or be anxious about tomorrow.

In fact, He told the early believers in verse 25 not to worry about their lives, and in verse 27, He tells them not to worry about time. In other words, before we put our efforts and energies into anything else, we should seek to know God’s love, mercy, and grace.

We can give Him our concerns and trust in Him. If we make our Creator of the universe our first and foremost priority, then everything else will take care of itself and fall into place. “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. “ Peace and contentment can be ours.

 Prayer

Dear God, help us to make you the center of our lives – to seek you, know you, and love you. May we give you our cares and trust in your love for us. Thank you for the peace, comfort, strength and hope only you can give.  Amen