| Dr. J.R. Miller | Page 6 |
There is a story of a merchant who was resolved to make money his servant, never allowing it to become his master. Once, a ship of his that was coming home was overdue. The first day he was anxious, the next day yet more worried, and the third day he found himself very sorely troubled. Then he came to himself, and, seeing, what a hold earthly things had gotten upon him, he ceased to be anxious for his ship and became alarmed for his own soul. “Is it possible,” he asked, “that I am coming to love money for itself, and not merely for its nobler uses?” Taking the value of the ship and its cargo, he gave it to charities, not because he wished to be rid of the money, but because only thus could he get the conquest over himself. He who has learned this lesson well will not worry. He is God’s servant, God’s child, and is dependent for happiness, not upon the continuance of earthly prosperity, but upon God, whose resources of provision and blessing are infinite, like Himself. Whether he has affluence or nothing, he is at peace, for God is taking care of him.
Another reason Jesus gives against, worry is that God, having given us our life, is surely able to provide for our life’s passing needs. The life itself is more than its provision. What a strange, mysterious thing it is, this that we call life! It is more wonderful than the mountains or the stars.
Think of physical life, that beats in the heart and pulses in the veins, and stirs in all the fibres. Think of mental life, that knows, remembers, feels, thinks, chooses, loves, suffers; that can dart across seas, and fly to the stars; that can create beauty, plan, reason, discover, will, think of spiritual life, that can climb the stairways of light and commune with God; that can worship; that can be fashioned into the divine image; that is capable of heavenly blessedness, and shares the immortality of God. Do not the acts of creating and bestowing a thing so marvellous as life require a more, wonderful manifestation of power than the providing of the little piece of bread and the cup of water we need, day by day, to sustain the functions of life? Why then should we be anxious for these things?
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