Today’s Word: Consider

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus encourages us to “consider the lilies of the field” as a model for our lives. They don’t worry much about their lives, and neither should we, we are told. But let’s consider these lilies a little more. Consider these things: The lily does not choose where it stands in the field, or which weeds and thorns grow up around it. It cannot control the weather or how much sunlight it receives. In short, it cannot change the things it cannot change, like what kind of lily it is or what color. What it can do is stand and endure. It can “bloom where it is planted” and become the lily it was meant to become. It cannot become a tulip or an oak tree. The lily is beautiful on its own, as are we all in the sight of God.

In a recent Ignatian prayer exercise, I was asked to consider these lilies and, in doing so, to consider “how much of me is mine and how much is God’s.” It’s not an easy question, for some things seem to come from neither God nor me. Unless I abuse or don’t take care of my body, I don’t really “choose” health or illness, and neither does God choose for us illness or violence against us. Nevertheless, the choices we make, the will of God, and the things that just “happen” to us as humans in an imperfect world intermingle to become what we think of as our “lives.”

What we are called to do in the midst of all this imperfection is the punch line of this particular parable: “Seek God first and the rest will fall into place.”  Like the lily, we cannot change where and how we were raised or how well we were nurtured. To a great extent we cannot control our health, although we are certainly called to care for ourselves and respect our bodies and what we put into them or do with them. Our greatest desire – wherever we are in life – should be responding to the will of the gardener and master planter, the sower of the seed.

Ask yourself in silence: What are the things I most worry about? Do I worry about things I cannot change? How often do I seek God first?