How can you find out if you are living within the will of God? Here is the sign: If you are troubled about any thing, this means that you have not completely given yourself over to the will of God. A person who lives in the will of God is not concerned over anything. And if he needs anything, he gives both it and himself over to God. And if he does not receive the necessary thing, he remains calm nevertheless, as if he had it. The soul which has been given over to the will of God is afraid of nothing, not of thunder nor of thieves – nothing. But whatever happens, she says, “Thus it pleases God.” If she is sick, she thinks: this means that I need to be sick, or else God would not have given it to me. Thus peace is preserved in both soul and body.
~St. Silouan the Athonite
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. … The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! … No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. … Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 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. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. … Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”
~ Jesus, King of The Universe, in Matthew 6
Oh beloved, it is true.
There is a truth that we are so unwilling to believe. Because, in our selfish little minds, we think that the only way we actually are going to believe something is true, is when we see it first – with our own eyes.
There is, though, a significant problem with this way of thinking. It is absolutely wrong. It misses the entire point of what reality is really like. The Kingdom of G_d is a real and abiding thing.
Life, truth, goodness, reality, and Love all flow towards us from a Source that is transcendent (though still proximal) to us. None of what we receive in this life is from what we have built up from within ourselves. No, it is all from Him.
Can we see it?
This is why Jesus even spoke the way He did. He was not saying that we should avoid worry, just because it was bad for us. No, He is saying that we should quit worrying because we never could have fixed our problems on our own in the first place.
Further, Jesus is saying that we should trust that His Heavenly Father (and ours), not because if we perform some sort of ritual following of His will, and doing good things, He will then choose to take on the duty of providing something for us. He is saying we should focus on the Kingdom, because there is absolutely no need to focus on anything else.
G_d has your (and this fool of a writer’s) back.
Really.
So, are you anxious about what might be (or not be) available to you in the near future – or far future? Not only is this not necessary, it actually takes away from our ability to enjoy the truth that G_d will and does provide for us. And, it robs us of the energy we need to do the thing we can be doing: seeking Him and His Kingdom.
Tonight is your night. Time to seek what actually works, and to quit worrying about what doesn’t.
The more prayers and searchings of heart come between our needs and supplies, our afflictions and reliefs, the sweeter are our reliefs and supplies thereby made to us. “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us; this is the Lord, we have waited for him, we will rejoice and be glad in his salvation” (Isaiah 25:9).
~John Flavel
