QFD | Treasured : Entry 5 - The Anxiety Tax

Treasured : ENTRY 5: The Anxiety Tax

When Money Demands Peace as Rent

"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?" —Matthew 6:25 (ESV)

Anxiety is expensive.

Not just in the way it exhausts the body, fragments attention, or steals sleep—though it does all of that. Anxiety is expensive because it charges the soul a constant fee for the illusion of control.

And money is one of anxiety's favorite billing systems.

In this part of Jesus' sermon, He doesn't merely address worry as a personality trait. He exposes it as a spiritual signal—a sign of what we believe is holding us up. Anxiety often appears where trust has thinned. And when money is involved, worry has a way of sounding reasonable. Almost responsible.

But Jesus treats it as something deeper than practicality.

Just one verse earlier, He declared that no one can serve two masters—God and mammon (Matthew 6:24). What follows is not a shift in topic but an extension of it. The anxious heart is often a heart quietly trying to serve both. And Jesus, who knows us better than we know ourselves, presses directly into that divided loyalty.

The Anxiety That Sounds Like Wisdom

There is a kind of anxiety that masquerades as maturity.

"I'm just being prepared." "I'm just being realistic." "I'm just trying to protect my family."

Some of that may be wise. Scripture commends planning—the Proverbs are full of it. But there is a line where planning becomes pressure, and pressure starts to feel like devotion.

Because anxiety carries a hidden claim inside it:

If I don't hold this together, everything falls apart.

That claim is not neutral. It assigns divine weight to human control. It makes us the load-bearing wall of our own lives.

Jesus speaks directly into that fear:

"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life…" —Matthew 6:25a (ESV)

He is not telling us to ignore reality. He is telling us that reality has a Father.

Money as a False Shelter

Money promises stability. And in a limited sense, it can provide resources for legitimate needs. But money cannot provide the one thing anxious hearts are actually hunting for: certainty.

This is why anxiety clings to money. Not because money is evil, but because money feels like shelter.

So we stockpile. We obsess over numbers. We calculate and recalculate. We rehearse worst-case scenarios while lying in bed. We revisit balances like they're a form of prayer.

And slowly, money becomes the place we go to feel safe—whether it actually works or not.

Scripture warns us not to place our hearts there:

"If riches increase, set not your heart on them." —Psalm 62:10b (ESV)

Anxiety is often the first symptom that the heart has begun to set itself on something other than God.

What Anxiety Costs

Anxiety taxes more than the mind. It taxes the soul.

It steals attentiveness to God. It shortens patience with people. It chokes generosity and dulls courage. It robs us of the freedom to simply rest.

And in their place, it leaves self-protectiveness. Irritability. A low hum of internal noise that never quite goes away.

Anxiety doesn't just make life harder. It quietly makes the heart smaller.

Jesus calls us to lift our eyes—because anxiety thrives in tunnel vision.

Birds, Lilies, and the Father Who Knows

Jesus does something unexpected here. He points anxious people at creation. Not because nature is soothing, but because nature testifies.

"Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" —Matthew 6:26 (ESV)

"And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." —Matthew 6:28–29 (ESV)

Birds don't worship money. Lilies don't obey fear. They simply exist under providence.

Jesus is not romanticizing creation. He's arguing from it.

If God feeds birds, will He abandon sons? If God clothes wildflowers, will He forget daughters?

Then He delivers the heart of it:

"But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?" —Matthew 6:30 (ESV)

Anxiety is not just a feeling. It is often a faith issue.

Not in the sense that anxious believers are fake believers—but in the sense that anxiety exposes where faith is being pressed. Where trust has grown thin. Where we have started, perhaps without realizing it, to carry weight we were never meant to bear.

The Gentile Chase

Jesus contrasts kingdom living with anxious pursuit:

"For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all." —Matthew 6:32 (ESV)

The Gentiles chase because they don't have a Father. But Christians forget their Father more easily than we like to admit.

When money-driven anxiety rises, Jesus doesn't just correct behavior. He reminds us of identity. You have a Father. And your Father knows what you need.

The Kingdom Alternative

Here is the answer Jesus gives—not merely relief, but reordering:

"But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." —Matthew 6:33 (ESV)

This is not "don't care about needs." This is "don't let needs become your god."

The kingdom-first life is not reckless. It is re-centered.

God is provider—not money. God is protector—not savings. God is Lord—not anxiety.

Tomorrow's Weight

Jesus ends this section with one of the most practical commands in all of Scripture:

"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." —Matthew 6:34 (ESV)

This is not denial. This is discipline.

Tomorrow has a weight you cannot carry today. If you try, you will live crushed beneath days that haven't even arrived.

God's mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:23). His pattern has always been daily bread, not stockpiled security. Anxiety tries to consume tomorrow's grace today—and there is never enough, because it was never meant to be carried that way.

Paying a Different Rent

If you find yourself caught in this cycle, here are a few places to begin:

Name the fear. What outcome are you trying to prevent by worrying? Say it out loud if you have to. Anxiety loses some of its power when it's no longer allowed to hide.

Identify the false shelter. What number, account, or plan has started to feel like your savior? What do you check when you're afraid?

Return to daily bread. Jesus taught us to pray for today's needs—not a lifetime guarantee. Practice asking for what you need now, and trust Him with what you don't yet know.

Practice open-handedness. Give something away. Generosity breaks anxiety's grip because it reenacts trust. It says with your hands what your heart is trying to believe.

Speak the command back to yourself. "Do not be anxious about your life…" (Matthew 6:25). Sometimes obedience begins with repetition.

A Few Questions Worth Sitting With

• What am I treating like a god every time I check it?

• What would change in my life if I truly believed my Father knows my needs?

• Where has planning become panic?

• What "tomorrow" am I trying to carry today?

• What is one small act of trust I can practice this week?

Christ-Shaped Closure

Anxiety demands peace as rent. Jesus gives peace as a gift.

He does not offer us a life with no needs. He offers us a Father who will not abandon us in our needs.

And He purchased that security at the cross.

"He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" —Romans 8:32 (ESV)

If God has already given what was most costly—most precious—most beloved to Him, then the logic of anxiety begins to unravel.

The cross answers the question worry keeps asking.

Anxious hearts ask, What if God withholds? The cross replies: He already did not.

The Father did not spare His own Son. He is not stingy with His care. He gave Christ freely. He is not careless with your needs. He paid the highest price for your redemption. He will not abandon you in provision.

This does not mean life will be easy. Jesus never promised insulation from hardship. But He promised presence in it—and faithfulness through it.

Anxiety tells us we must secure our own future. The gospel tells us our future has already been secured.

And this is why anxiety loses its authority when trust is restored. Money no longer has to function as shelter. Planning no longer has to become panic. Provision no longer has to feel like pressure. The Father who knows your needs is the same Father who gave His Son.

That truth does not eliminate responsibility. It reorders it.

We still work. We still plan. We still steward wisely. But we no longer pay anxiety as rent for peace.

Peace has already been purchased. And it was not paid for with money.

It was paid for with Christ.

So loosen your grip today. Release tomorrow. Receive today's grace.

And let your trust rest—not in what you can secure—but in the treasure the Father has already secured.