Worry and Fear? Or Faith?

In the world we live in today, it is easy to get carried away in our fears. With the falls of the banking institutions, with the stock market so volatile and even closer to home, the struggle to keep food on the table and gas in the cars and to pay the bills that are due. Not to mention, will we be able to keep educating our children at home, while living on the single income that most of us live on. With all of these very valid concerns, we can easily be consumed with what our future holds.

   Friends, we need not fear, in John 14:27 the bible says, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not, your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” In 1 Kings 17, we are told of the widow woman Zarepath who sustained Elijah through the famine. We all know the story, the widow woman only had enough meal and oil to feed her and her son, just one meal, then they would eat and then die. And what was Elijah’s response? See in verse 13 it says, “And Elijah said unto her; Fear not; go and do as thou hast said, but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son” and it continues on in verse 14… “For thus saith the Lord God of Isarel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth.” We know that the widow woman did just that, and we know that the Lord was faithful in His promises. However, what strikes me, is that the Lord did not just fill the barrel to the top with meal, nor did he just fill the cruse. Why is that, do you suppose?   He wants us to see that it is He that is providing for all of our needs. Every morning, when she went and scooped out the last handful of meal, and used that last bit of oil, she knew that meal had been provided by the Lord.  The Lord could put a million dollars in each of our bank accounts, if He wanted to. Though, He created us, He knows our nature. We would be come “self” centered, and “self” reliant. Or so we would think. We would lose sight, “that every good thing is a gift from above”. When you have to get down on your knees and pray in your next meal, or your next years curriculum, or for the bills to be paid, when those things are provided, it is clear, the Lord has met your needs.

 I think what Jesus says in Matthew 6 sums it up beautifully, verses 30-33… “ Wherefore, if God so clothed the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? Or, What shall we drink? Or Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

 May the Lord bless you and your family, richly!