The other day I was taking some notes for a podcast interview I have coming up, and one of the questions was “Do you have any favorite Bible verses?”  Which is actually kind of a difficult question to answer when you have the entire Bible to choose from!  

I feel like we all tend to have different favorite verses or passages for different seasons in our lives, so it can be hard to narrow it down to one to give as a general answer when someone randomly asks what your favorite verse is.  But you really should try to have something in your back pocket, cause you never know when someone is gonna ask, and you don’t want to have a Tim Hawkins moment!

But today when I got to thinking about it, I figured that throughout the years there has always been one thing in our lives that we do on the regular and go to the Bible for advice on – and that’s planning out the future.  

Matthew 6:25-34 seemed to fit the bill for that topic.  But as I continued to type up my notes and really began to dissect that passage a little more, it occurred to me just how applicable these verses truly are to my own life here on the homestead.

Worrying in the Overwhelm

Considering that our family has lots of big dreams and unconventional vision, we do a LOT of planning.  Like, major brainstorming sessions on the daily.  Successful homesteading (especially with a permaculture mindset) requires certain gardens to be planted at certain times, animals to be moved and cared for regularly, fences and buildings to be maintained, the harvests to be preserved properly for storage, and a myriad of other things that all have their own complicated timetables and deadlines.  And in the midst of all this planning, it’s pretty easy to get overwhelmed with the sheer volume of work that needs to be done, and how little time there seems to be to do it.

It seems like at least once a month, I have a panic moment when I second guess everything we’re doing out here.  I worry that if everything doesn’t go exactly according to plan, and happen right on the schedule we’ve set, we won’t be able to accomplish everything we need to do.  I worry that we won’t get gardens in the ground in time, and we won’t have the money to buy the food we need to keep us healthy.  Or I worry that we won’t have the time and money to build infrastructure for the animals we need to get!  And how on earth are we going to afford to build a house before we outgrow this yurt??

But then… I take a deep breath.  And hold it.  And slowly let it go… 

And I remember all of the times that God has been faithful to us before, even when the situation seemed overwhelming or even downright impossible.  And I remind myself that simply building a homestead – in and of itself – is not the main goal.  

Promises for Tomorrow

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?  

And why do you worry about clothes?  See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will He not much more clothe you—you of little faith?  

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the pagans run after all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first His Kingdom and His Righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Matthew 6:25-34

You’ve probably read or heard this passage before, or at least chunks of it.  It’s pretty popular on trendy entryway signs and church bulletin boards.  But have you ever really slowed down and considered the profound impact of those words?  

“Do not worry.”  

“Your Heavenly Father knows that you need them.”  

“All these things will be given to you.”  

Those are huge promises!  And they mean that I can rest easy in my worrying and planning, knowing that God will provide for us exactly what we need.  Sounds pretty simple!

But… I think there’s a part of that passage that often gets overlooked in the inspirational speeches and feel-good books, and it’s a really important part.

“But seek first His Kingdom and His Righteousness”.

My Kingdom or His Kingdom?

Since our current lifestyle is so full of self-sufficiency and prepping and planning, it is so easy to slide from healthy planning and diligence, into worry and stressing about the future – so much so that it detracts from our true calling: to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness in our lives. 

I’ll be honest with you, sometimes the Kingdom work feels like it gets in the way of homesteading.  Taking time or money out of our lives and using it for ministry tends to push the homesteading stuff to the back-burner.  The example that hits me the hardest right now is making space for our children to be involved in our daily work.  

So much of our time on the homestead has to be spent working on projects and chores, and I know that letting the kids work with us and be involved is SO important (shoot, otherwise we would never get a chance to interact with them!).  There is so much growth and learning and development in a child that comes from working with their parents in the daily grind of life.  Those are the moments that give opportunities for character building, teaching, and passing on your values to the next generation.

But… it definitely slows things down.  Waiting for Pj to hand me a nail from the bag I let her hold (and pick up the three she dropped in the process) is a lot less efficient than just having a handful in my belt pouch and doing it all myself.  Letting J-Girl help me wash the dishes takes twice as long and makes twice as big a mess in the kitchen.  

And at the end of the day I can feel frustrated that we didn’t get as much done as we hoped we would.  I start to worry about deadlines for planting, and the rain coming too soon before everything woodshed gets finished, and getting the laundry all washed again before everyone runs out of clean underwear.  

It would be a whole lot easier to send the kids away to play somewhere else and just get the job done.  We’d certainly finish building projects on the homestead a whole lot quicker!  

But, in those moments, am I focused on building my kingdom or God’s kingdom?  

Am I choosing to miss an opportunity to cultivate His righteousness in our family by rushing through every day in a flurry to get everything done?

Do I truly trust Him when He says that He will meet our needs if I give my precious time to Him?

Seeking Him First

This passage in Matthew reminds us that the Kingdom work and pursuit of His righteousness in our lives comes FIRST – not after you finally feel financially secure or have a bunch of free time – and the blessings He promises will be GIVEN to us.  God is giving us full permission to focus on His work for us above all else, and He is promising that He will meet our needs in exactly the way He knows they need to be met.  

But hear this – He will meet our needs in the way that will fulfill His purposes best, not our own.  Him meeting our needs might not look exactly how we had planned.  It might even look like failed hopes or broken dreams for a while.  But He promises that ultimately His ways will be so much better – for us, and for His Kingdom – IF our main goal is to grow His Kingdom and seek His righteousness.

But what if I give my time to God, but I don’t get my garden in on time?  Maybe God is putting me in the position of having to ask my neighbors for help, and in the process opens up a ministry opportunity!  Or maybe He wants us to go through a season of scarcity, so that we can learn to more fully depend on Him, instead of relying on our own self-sufficiency?

But what if I give my money to God, even though I don’t have much, and I don’t have enough gas money for the month?  Maybe God is asking me to focus on my home and my family and my neighbors right now, instead of going into town and spending my time there.  Or maybe we don’t have enough money to build our house, but He wants us to learn contentment where we are?  Or He could be lining up a miracle to bring Himself glory!

But what if life isn’t going the way I thought it would, and for the life of me, I just can’t. understand. why?  We’ve all experienced tragedy, heartbreak, maybe even trauma.  The evil results of a fallen world litter the headlines and our hearts every day.

Yet even in the midst of these things, God extends His comfort, His mercy, and His love to those who continue to seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness.  Even in trials, He is advancing His purposes in accordance with His perfect will, for the good of those who are called according to His purposes.

All of these things that at first glance look like God not meeting our needs, are still blessings that can grow our faith and our testimonies.  And we will see them as such, if we are FIRST seeking His Kingdom and His righteousness, and not our own.  

Times of scarcity or lack, whether financially, or time-wise, or in some other way, are opportunities for us to grow in our character, and for God to show Himself strong in our lives and the lives of others.  And we will see how He still meets our needs – so long as we are FIRST seeking His Kingdom and His righteousness, and not our own.

I Needn’t Worry About Tomorrow

So while our homestead might have a lot of important work yet to be done, and while our garden might get trampled by little wanting-to-be-helpful feet, and while we might not have much money to our name at the moment, I can rest easy knowing that God will provide for us exactly what we need in order to accomplish His purposes.  

He will not let us go through this life without the tools we need to build His Kingdom, whether that be the right food at the right time, or the right amount of money in the right circumstances.  If His plan for our family involves thirty chickens and a milk cow, then I trust Him to provide those things for us, even while we devote our limited time and money to building His Kingdom.  If His plan for us doesn’t include those things, then I will trust Him to give us what we need, when we need it, and the means to procure it, regardless of our circumstances.

After all, He feeds the birds, even though they do not sow or reap.  Are we not much more valuable than they?