Follow Jesus Christ

Many people today live with a constant background tension. It isn’t always conscious, but it’s almost always connected to money. Is it enough? Will I lose it? What if something goes wrong? Even with a steady income and outward prosperity, the anxiety doesn’t go away. What if I get fired? There seems to be money, but no inner peace. Why?

On a plane, the same instruction is always given before takeoff: in case of cabin depressurization, put your own oxygen mask on first, and then on your child. To many that sounds almost cruel. Instinctively you want to do the opposite. But the instruction’s meaning is simple: a person without air loses clarity and cannot help anyone. The mask is not an end in itself, but a means that keeps you conscious.

For a great many people money performs the same function. It becomes the oxygen mask. Not because a person is greedy or heartless, but because they are afraid — afraid of losing their footing, control, security. Afraid of suffocating in the catastrophe they imagine. The problem starts when the means quietly turns into the basis of identity. Money ceases to be a tool of care and becomes proof that one has the right to live at all.

When Jesus Christ says, “Do not worry about tomorrow,” He is not speaking to hermits or irresponsibles. He is speaking to those who have families, jobs, obligations. His words are often taken as a call to carelessness, but in reality it’s something else. He does not cancel care — He removes fear as the driving force of life.

Ask a simple question: are concern and anxiety the same thing? Why must love for family be constantly fueled by fear? What if a large part of what we call responsibility is actually panic, just well-disguised? A deep terror reaching back to our distant ancestors?

It’s important to remove a possible fear or misunderstanding right away. Yes, there are people who, under spiritual slogans, stop caring for their families. They speak of trusting God, but avoid work, responsibility and concrete decisions. They shift the burden onto their loved ones and call it spirituality. Jesus is not about that. He never encouraged irresponsibility. He speaks not against labor, but against a life built on anxiety.

Return to the image of the oxygen mask. The mask is indeed necessary. But a person who grabs it in a panic often does so too often, too late, or the wrong way. They fuss, lose attention, get in others’ way. The same is true of money: fear makes care hard and relationships strained. The family turns into a survival project where the main thing is not love and presence but constant risk control. We burn out from that race and constant tension.

When Jesus’s words are taken literally but their logic is not understood, confusion arises. He is not saying, “Stop working” or “Ignore reality.” He says, “Stop living as if without this mask you cease to exist.” He restores a person’s breath — an inner freedom without which care becomes coercion.

It’s interesting what happens when fear recedes. One does not become irresponsible. On the contrary, one’s care often becomes calmer and more accurate. One pressures less, controls less, and is more present. One continues to provide for the family steadily, not out of terror about the future, but out of love and a clear understanding of present needs.

If money stops being the center of identity, will care for loved ones disappear? Or will only that part of care that was really fear vanish? The oxygen mask remains. Money doesn’t disappear. But it returns to its place. It stops being life itself and becomes a means again. That is the essence of Jesus’s words: He does not pull the ground out from under a person’s feet; He removes what prevents them from breathing. From breath, not from anxiety, genuine mature care is born.

A reader of this article may finally ask an important question: will God give them a job and income if they lose it? Is that God’s guarantee? Or should you rely only on yourself? No, God does not guarantee a specific job or income. And no, Jesus is not saying “rely only on yourself.” He offers a third position that is usually overlooked. Jesus did not say, “Follow me and you will always have a good job.” On the other hand, the phrase “rely only on yourself” does great harm: it intensifies loneliness and turns crisis into personal failure. In this world we cannot count solely on our own strength.

What Jesus actually says is that even if you lose everything — you will not lose yourself. Jesus promises you will not be left alone, that fear should not govern your decisions, that your worth is not equal to your income, and that you will be able to act rather than suffocate from anxiety. This is not magic. It is inner resilience and an awareness of the value of your being.