Hey everyone, I'm Dr. Allison.

Today's scripture offers us a wiser way of being human as we step into the day.

Many of us begin the morning already ahead of ourselves, mentally rehearsing conversations,

scanning for problems, or bracing for what might go wrong.

That instinct makes sense.

It's how the human mind tries to protect us. But scripture invites us into a different posture,

one that's not passive, but deeply grounded in God's presence. Today's scripture is Matthew 6, 25, through 29, and 34. 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. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow,

for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. I love this passage,

but it's also one of those passages that can easily be misunderstood as a command to stop thinking or shut down concern or even that worry is a sin.

And that's usually where people get stuck because the mind doesn't work that way.

From a psychological perspective, worry isn't a moral failure. It's a part of you that's trying to regain control. Your brain is doing what human brains have always done, scanning the horizon, anticipating threat, and trying to stay one step ahead of pain. What's interesting here is that Jesus doesn't shame that instinct. He doesn't say

you shouldn't have trouble. He says today already has enough. In other words, this isn't a call to

numbness. It's a call to containment. One of the marks of emotional maturity, what psychology would call good internal regulation,

is the ability to locate ourselves in time, to know what actually belongs to this moment, to this day, and what does not?

When tomorrow's imagined or perceived problems invade today,

...