Do not worry about tomorrow: the Christian teaching on worry, seen through one map

"Do not worry about tomorrow" is one of the best known lines in the Christian scriptures, and one of the hardest to live. This post is part of a series in which I look at the essence of different traditions through one map, the Present Attention and Happiness Matrix from my book. The first was on Buddhism and the second on the Bhagavad Gita. After this one come Stoicism and Islam. In each, I am not explaining the tradition; its own teachers and pastors do that far better. I am describing how one of its central teachings on the mind looks when I hold it up against the nine positions attention can take.

The short version

• In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells his listeners not to worry about their lives or about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself and each day has enough trouble of its own
• On the matrix, tomorrow lives in the future row, and worry about it is Future + Dislikes (worry): attention spent on a day that has not arrived
• "Each day has enough trouble of its own" points attention back to the present column, where the actual day's trouble can be met
• The Psalms add "be still". Through the map, stillness is the one position with no push and no pull: Present + Neutral (presence)
• Comparing helps understanding. Mixing practices is a different thing, and the book asks readers not to

What the passage says

The words come near the end of the sixth chapter of Matthew's Gospel, in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus tells the crowd not to worry about what they will eat, drink or wear. He points to the birds of the air, which do not store food in barns, and to the lilies of the field, which do not labour or spin, and says that God cares for them. He asks who, by worrying, can add a single hour to their life. Then comes the line in Matthew 6:34, in a common English rendering: do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself; each day has enough trouble of its own.

For Christians this is not advice about technique. It sits inside a teaching about trusting God and seeking his kingdom first, and I am not able to speak to that. What I can describe is what the passage does to attention.

How it looks on the map

The Present Attention and Happiness Matrix sorts every moment of attention into nine attention states: past, present or future, combined with liking, disliking or neutral.

Which of these does your mind visit most? See your mind score - free.

Tomorrow has a precise address on this grid. It is in the future row by definition. Worrying about it, "what will we eat, what if there is not enough", is Future + Dislikes (worry). In my book, that position is the structure of anxiety itself: attention held in the future while carrying dislike. The longer version is in what anxiety actually is.

The question in the passage, who can add a single hour by worrying, reads to me as an observation about this position. Worry about tomorrow does not change tomorrow. It changes today, by filling it with a tomorrow that has not happened. Worry is a visit to a day that has not arrived, made at the cost of the one that has.

"Each day has enough trouble of its own" is the turn I find most precise. It does not say the day will be easy. It says the trouble that is actually here is enough to deal with, and that it is dealt with here. On the map, that is the present column.

Worry is not the same as planning

People sometimes read the passage as "never think about the future". Christian teachers generally do not read it that way; the same scriptures praise the ant that stores food in summer. The book draws the same line in its own terms. Planning is Future + Neutral (planning): you set a direction and take the next step, and then you come back. Worry is Future + Dislikes (worry): the plan has turned into a rehearsal of what could go wrong.

The book's practical example is someone facing a serious illness. They still need to attend appointments and make decisions. All of that can be done from the present, with brief, deliberate visits to the future for planning, without the extra layer of suffering that comes from living in the worst case. That is close to how I read "each day has enough trouble of its own".

Be still

A line from the Psalms often travels with this passage: be still, and know that I am God. Its teachers read it as a call to stop striving and to rest in God, and that meaning is theirs to give.

The stillness part I can describe. The book says the mind seeks a natural balance, and that every position except one involves a small movement: wanting something to continue, wanting it back, wanting it to be different, wanting it over. Present + Neutral (presence) is the one position with no push and no pull. When I read "be still", that is where my attention goes: not to an effort to be calm, but to the centre where nothing is being pushed. The longer description is in Present + Neutral.

Christianity also has a long tradition of bringing attention back to the present moment. One of its best known voices is Brother Lawrence, a seventeenth-century lay brother in a Paris monastery, whose letters and conversations were gathered as The Practice of the Presence of God. He described returning his attention to God again and again during ordinary work, including in the kitchen. The book has its own version of that returning, without any belief attached: attention will wander, and each return is the practice.

What this does not do

This post uses the Present Attention and Happiness Matrix, the author's own model from The Return of Attention. It describes experience, not a diagnosis. How the matrix works.

It does not explain Christian teaching. Its pastors, scholars and contemplatives are the right guides to it, and this post only describes how one of its passages looks to me through the map.

It does not ask anyone to stop planning or caring about the future. Planning stays; what changes is whether planning turns into worry.

And it does not suggest combining the two practices, for the reason below. If worry has become constant, or low mood has lasted two weeks or more, please also talk to a doctor; a teaching is not a substitute for care.

Comparing, not mixing

The preface of my book carries one instruction that applies to every post in this series: "Do not mix this with other practices, physically or mentally and expect results. Allow your own judgment to come at the end of the practice, not before."

Comparing two descriptions of the mind is a way to understand both. Practising two methods at once is something else, and it is not what I am suggesting. If you follow the Christian path, its own teachers are the right guides for that path. If you want to try the map, the place to start is the nine attention states, and the practical version for worry is why am I always anxious.

Common questions

What does "do not worry about tomorrow" mean? In Matthew 6:34, Jesus tells his listeners that tomorrow will worry about itself and that each day has enough trouble of its own. Through the matrix, it describes attention leaving the future row and returning to the day that is actually here.

Does the Bible say not to plan for the future? Christian teachers generally read the passage as being about anxious worry, not prudent planning. The book makes the same distinction: planning is Future + Neutral, worry is Future + Dislikes.

What does "be still" mean in this context? For Christians, it is a call to rest in God. Through the map, the stillness itself is the one position with no push and no pull, Present + Neutral.

Is this map taken from Christianity? This series compares how different traditions look through one map. It is not a claim about where any of them come from.