"Consider the lilies, 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." — Luke 12:27
Jesus said this to people who were worried about food and clothing. Not hypothetically worried. Actually worried — the kind of worry that keeps you up at night, that runs in the background of every conversation, that makes the future feel like a threat rather than a gift.
And His answer was: go look at a flower.
That sounds almost dismissive until you understand what He's actually saying.
The Context: After the Rich Fool
Luke 12 opens with Jesus warning about the rich fool — the man who tore down his barns to build bigger ones, who said to his soul: you have ample goods laid up for many years, relax, eat, drink, be merry. And God said: fool. This night your soul is required of you.
The rich fool's problem was that he trusted in accumulated wealth to secure his future. He thought if he could just store up enough, he would be safe. He made provision his god.
And then Jesus turns to His disciples and addresses the other side of the same problem. The rich fool hoarded because he didn't trust God. The anxious disciple worries because he doesn't trust God. The sin is the same — a failure to believe that God is actually in charge of the future and actually good enough to be trusted with it.
Into both failures, Jesus says the same thing: seek first the kingdom of God, and these things will be added to you. (Luke 12:31)
The Command to Consider
"Consider the lilies" is not a casual suggestion. The word Jesus uses is an active, deliberate command — stop, look, pay attention, let what you're seeing actually land. He's not saying "glance at a flower on your way to work." He's saying: sit with this. Let the created world preach to you.
The lilies don't toil. They don't spin. They don't strategize or accumulate or worry about next season. They simply receive what God provides — sun, rain, soil — and they become what God designed them to be. And what they become is more beautiful than anything Solomon, the wealthiest king in Israel's history, ever wore.
God dressed a wildflower more beautifully than the most powerful human being who ever lived. And that wildflower will be gone tomorrow — thrown into the oven, Jesus says. It's temporary. It's ordinary. And God lavished beauty on it anyway.
If that's how God treats a flower that lasts a day, what does that tell you about how He treats His children?
The "How Much More" Argument
Jesus uses this logic twice in the passage. Consider the ravens — they don't sow or reap or store, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? Consider the lilies — they don't toil or spin, and yet God clothes them more beautifully than Solomon. How much more will He clothe you?
The argument is built on your value to God. You are not just another part of creation. You are made in His image. You are redeemed by the blood of His Son. You are adopted as His child. You are an heir of the kingdom. The distance between a raven and a human being, in terms of God's care and investment, is not small. It is infinite.
Romans 8:32 makes the argument at its highest register: 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? If God gave the most costly thing in existence to secure your redemption, is He going to withhold food and clothing? The cross is the ultimate proof of God's provision. Everything else is a smaller gift from the same generous hand.
What Anxiety Is Actually Saying
Jesus calls anxiety "little faith" — not no faith, but insufficient faith to overcome worry. And He asks a question that cuts through the anxiety with simple logic: which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? (Luke 12:25)
The answer is obvious. No one. Anxiety accomplishes nothing except to make the present moment worse while doing nothing about the future moment you're afraid of. It is, as Jesus implies, a kind of practical atheism — living as if God is not actually in charge, as if the future is genuinely uncertain, as if your worry might somehow fill the gap that God has left.
But God has not left a gap. He knows what you need before you ask. (Matthew 6:8) He is not surprised by your circumstances. He is not scrambling to respond. He is the God who clothes wildflowers with extravagant beauty — and He knows your name.
Seek First the Kingdom
The positive command that follows the negative one is the key to the whole passage: seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you. (Luke 12:31)
This is not a formula for getting what you want. It's a reorientation of what you're living for. When God's kingdom is your first priority — when you are more concerned with His glory and His purposes than with your own security and comfort — provision falls into proper perspective. You're not ignoring practical needs. You're trusting that the God who called you into His kingdom is the same God who will sustain you in it.
Philippians 4:6–7: do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
The peace is not the absence of difficulty. It's the presence of God in the middle of it. It's the settled confidence of someone who has looked at the lilies, considered what they mean, and concluded: the God who dressed a wildflower in glory will not abandon me.
Consider the lilies. Let them preach. And then trust the God who made them.
- Todd Wallace, 4HG
Go Deeper
- Jesus addresses both the rich fool who hoards and the anxious disciple who worries — and both failures have the same root: not trusting God with the future. Which side of that failure do you lean toward? Do you tend to accumulate and control, or to worry and fear? What does it mean that both are ultimately the same problem — and that the answer to both is the same?
- Jesus says to "consider" the lilies — an active, deliberate command to stop and let the created world preach to you. When did you last actually do that? What would it look like to build the practice of deliberate attention into your life — to regularly stop and let what God has made remind you of who God is?
- Romans 8:32 says: He who did not spare His own Son — how will He not also graciously give us all things? The cross is the ultimate proof of God's provision. What is the specific thing you are most anxious about right now? Hold it against the cross. What does the fact that God gave His Son say about whether He will provide for that specific need?
A daily reminder to trust — Shop the Consider the Lilies Tee.
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