Anxiety or trustfulness?
We read of "care-encumbered men;" and truly we see more than we could wish of them. As we look into the faces of those we meet daily, we are saddened with the thought that a great weight of care rests on our race as a heavy burden. And when we see, as we do, a few faces that wear the look of a sweet serenity born of holy trust in God, we ask—Is it necessary that such an oppressive burden should be borne by the children of men? Jesus Christ answers this question in the negative. He says that anxiety is quite needless to the children of God; he says, "Trust and rest; believe in God, and be at peace; recognize the power and the love of your heavenly Father, and do not be 'greatly moved' by temporal necessities.'' And he reasons with us on the subject; he desires to prove to us the needlessness of anxiety in the presence of such a God and Father as is he whom we worship. He argues this-
1. FROM GOD'S GREATER KINDNESS TO OURSELVES. (Luke 12:23.) Any one of our friends who would do us a very great kindness would certainly be prepared to render us a very small favor. To one who has done us a valuable service we should look with perfect confidence to do some slight office for us. The love which is equal to the one will be more than equal to the other. Now, God has given us life, and has been sustaining us in being by his constant visitation; he has given us our wonderfully constituted body, and he has been preserving it in health and strength for years. Will he who has conferred these great boons upon us withhold from us blessings so simple and so slight as food and raiment? "Is not the life more than meat [food], and the body than raiment?" Will he who grants the greater refuse the less?
II. FROM GOD'S CARE OF THINGS THAT ARE OF LESS ACCOUNT THAN WE ARE. (Luke 12:24, Luke 12:27, Luke 12:28.) "Consider the ravens"—birds of the air, creatures that are interesting in their degree, but unintelligent, unaccountable, perishable: God feeds them. "Consider the lilies, how they grow;" they do nothing for their clothing; and not only are they unintelligent and irresponsible like the birds, but they are unconscious, insentient things; yet they are exquisitely fair: God clothes them. If he takes thought for such creatures and for such things as these; if he concerns himself with that which is so much lower in the scale than are we, his own beloved children, created in his image and formed to share his own immortality, how certain it is that he will provide for us! The Divine wisdom that expends so much upon the lower will not neglect the higher.
III. THE COMPLETENESS OF OUR DEPENDENCE ON GOD. (Luke 12:25.) So completely are we in the hands of our Creator that we cannot, by any amount of thinking, "add one cubit to our stature." Do what we may, try what we can, we are still absolutely dependent on God. It rests with him to decide what shall be the length of our days, what shadow or sunshine shall fall on our path, whether our cup shall be sweet or bitter. We are in his Divine hands; let us be his servants; let us ask his guidance and blessing; and then let us trust ourselves to his power and his love. And this the more that we should remember—
IV. THE UNWORTHINESS OF GREAT CONCERN FOR SUCH TEMPORALITIES. To be greatly troubled about what we shall eat, or what we shall wear, or in what house we shall live,—this is pagan, but it is not Christian; leave that to "the nations of the world" (Luke 12:30).
V. THE RELATION IN WHICH GOD STANDS TO US. (Luke 12:30.) This is that of an all-wise Father. "Our Father knows." We are in the power of One who is perfectly acquainted with our circumstances and with ourselves; he will not deny us anything are need because he is ignorant of our necessity.; he will not give us anything that would be hurtful, for his fatherly love will constrain him to withhold it. We are immeasurably safer in his hands than we should be in those of the kindest of our human friends, or than we should be if it rested with our own will to shape our path, to fill our cup.—C.