“Dad, is this worm dead?

I heard the sound of my son’s voice speaking from behind me.

He had been beside me just a moment earlier, but as we walked across the gravel parking lot, he had spotted something lying on the ground.

I turned to see Michael squatted down, looking at the shriveled remains of an earthworm. Apparently, it had crawled out into the gravel and succumbed to the sun and heat.

“It looks like it, Buddy,” I said as I turned to continue walking.

After a few more steps, I turned to see that Michael was still kneeling in the dusty gravel. Now there was a neat pile of rocks mounded up over the place where the dead worm had been laying. As he placed the last stone on the top, he stood up and ran over to catch up with me.

“What were you doing?” I asked.

“I was burying him. If I had a piece of cardboard, I would have left a sign,” he said.

I paused for a moment to look down at him. His eyes were so innocent and filled with compassion. I knew that I was gazing into the kingdom of God.

My son had just taught his dad a little bit about our Father.

Michael had taken the time to stop and care for something as insignificant as a dead worm. I mean, it was just a worm. Yet, I watched as he demonstrated compassion by gently placing each stone with care. I was busy walking to my destination, but my son had eyes to see and a heart to respond, and I saw the heart of God that day.

As the mundane busyness of my day flies at me while I try to move at light speed, I am guilty of thinking that I have to take it on all by myself. “God has bigger things to care for than my inconsequential little issues,” I say to myself.

Therefore, I worry and fret over the constant barrage of stuff instead of giving it to the Father. By doing this, I assume a weight and burden that is not mine to bear.

Jesus tells us that we need not worry about anything. Just as God cares for the birds of the air, he will care for us—even more so.

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 anyone of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

Matthew 6:25-27, NIV

As I replay that image in my mind of my son in that parking lot, I can see God the Father, bending down on one knee over the burdens and troubles of my life, tenderly caring for my needs. Therefore, why should I worry? There is nothing in all of creation that is inconsequential to God. He cares for the birds of the air, the grass of the field, and even the worms of the earth.

And he cares for you and me.

Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

Matthew 18:3-5, NIV