05.07 | Be More Zebra
Luke 12:13-48
‘And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.”’
Luke 12:22-23
Not long ago, I listened to an interview with Dr Robert Sapolsky. Dr Sapolsky is a neuroendocrinologist, with a shock of curly hair and a fabulously wild beard. His research looks to the connection of mental wellbeing and hormonal activity in the body, with a particular focus on our experience of stress. Among his books is his well-known Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.
His premise is basically this: a zebra on the savannah has predators. They live with perpetual danger. And yet, they also live with almost no stress. Almost no stress, because the zebra’s stress system does kick into play if a lion starts chasing them. But then, the zebra has two outcomes: get eaten, or get away. If it gets eaten, no more stress. And if it gets away, it returns to its stress-free grazing remarkably quickly. Our own stress system, he argues, is likewise only designed for such fight or flight moments. Stress should be reserved for emergencies.
However, Sapolsky argues that Western society puts us in an environment of such noise, pressure, demands, notifications, interruptions, deadlines, and expectations, that we are living with near continual stress. Chronic stress. Our bodies are saturated in stress hormones, day and night, causing all sorts of physical and mental health issues. Our bodies are only meant to cope with episodic anxiety; but, living in the world that we do, anxiety has become the norm.
We need to be more zebra.
So our natural question is, how?
Jesus’ words today speak right into our moment. His metaphor is different from Dr Sapolsky, but His point is similar:
Consider the ravens.
Consider the lilies.
They don’t get ulcers either.
Anxiety, for those of us who know it too well (which is most of us), isn’t just dismissed by trying not to feel anxious. It’s not as simple as a choice. Anxiety is so immersive, that when you’re in the place of anxiety it’s difficult to see anything but anxiety. When we’re talking about anxiety, we need to move quickly from the ideal to the methodology. We need a methodology for our transformation.
Jesus gives it to us today in three words:
Seek His Kingdom.
What are we meant to do with this?
Jesus is going to the core of the anxious heart. Because the anxious heart tends to be concerned with many things. It is concerned with money, and clothing. It is concerned with the children and politics. It is concerned with expectations and deadlines. The anxious mind is furtively darting to and fro, rapidly considering competing expectations and multiple demands.
Jesus’ solution is, instead, to be concerned with a single thing. In all things—in our money, in our deadlines, in our relationships, in our parenting, in our politics, in each and every thing, instead, quite simply, seek His Kingdom. Let go of all the other competing demands, expectations, and priorities. Instead, consider in all activities how they might look if our endeavour was this simple, single pursuit.
This seems far too simple. And yet, it is not without precedent. This describes the ancient Christian practice of simplicity—in all things seeking the one thing.1
Does this come immediately?
No.
And yet, looking to align our motives and pursuits today in the simple direction of His Kingdom is a start. It is a start on a lifelong journey into the non-anxious Way of the King—where we turn down the noise, let go of trying to please everyone and their different expectations, and stop grasping for more from our relentless fear of deficit. And instead, that we learn, simply, steadily, trustingly, to make each little choice, in each normal and wonderful day, in the single pursuit of the furtherance of His Kingdom.
Reflect:
Consider something that you are anxious about.
What would it look like, in this situation, to seek only the Kingdom of God?
Pray:
Father,
My head often feels in a whir—
Of thoughts and ideas,
Demands and expectations,
Lists and tasks,
Voices and noises.
It’s chaos in here.
But Father,
I want to align.
I want to align my life with the simple pursuit:
In all things,
To be about the one thing—
That my work,
My rest,
My relationships,
My play,
My sleep,
My speech,
My stuff,
And my all,
Be unto the beautifully simple pursuit
Of the increase of your reign
That my life may be,
Simply,
Unto your glory.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Isaiah 42-43 | Proverbs 18:1-9
Richard Foster discusses this in his chapter on Simplicity in his classic, Celebration of Discipline. He also unpacks simplicity’s relationship to our possessions in his book Money, Sex, and Power. On a similar theme, Søren Kierkkegaard’s enigmatic line and book title, Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing, beautifully captures something of Jesus’ vision here.