Before Wil and I married, I lived in a second story flat of an old house in West Chicago. The door to the flat was at the top of the stairs, and as soon as you turned, there was the living room with a simple bookshelf right by the door. Perfect for my book collection I dubbed “books to grab first in case of fire.”

Books in my collection included titles by Mildred B. Taylor and Katherine Paterson, which shared space with Charles Williams, C.S. Lewis and, I couldn’t forget, The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri. When we married and moved into a studio apartment on Indiana Street, my book collection grew and became more eclectic as Wil added his in case of fire books that included The Metaphysical Poets and Dorothy Sayer’s Translation and Notes on the Divine Comedy—all bookended with our shared love for Flannery O’Connor and William Shakespeare.

Never mind the practicality of carrying the books out of the burning house, nor did it occur to us that in case of an actual fire the best exit might not be the most obvious one, but those beloved books were coming with us, even if their weight slowed us down.

If it were only books weighing me down in life.

Jesus knows his followers’ tendencies to lug around needless stuff such as worries, wealth, sin. He knows our tendencies to look down or sideways—not up to the birds of the air—in the desire to add that hour to the span of our lives, and he knows our hearts that focus on what we have in the here and now.

It’s that focus on the here and now that adds to my stash of worries, ranging from the war in Ukraine to my sister remaining cancer-free to the odd noise the car decides to make. As far as money goes, that’s simple—add away to the stash. And, surprise, surprise, my favorite sins stick to the stash like sturdy packing tape, holding everything together.

Though increasingly cumbersome, I’d rather walk through flames to the obvious exit, still in control of my sticky bundled burden But what about the narrow way that's right here? You know the one where I am forced to put down my burden, relinquishing control.

Then I remember Jesus’ graced words: “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, 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.” (Matthew 6:26-29).

I think of the big and little fears of war and disease and money and car noises. It could be a never-ending list over which I mostly have no control. I look up and consider that narrow exit, and putting that sticky, overweight stash down, I walk through it and am at home in a kingdom full of light and glorious flower fields.