A meditation on God's Providence

Matthew 6:25-26

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?

To tell the truth, this is one of the more difficult passages in the Gospels.   Not "difficult" as in "I don't want to hear it" but "difficult" as in "that makes no sense."  My life has been a constant effort.  I would venture to guess that there are exactly zero things that I'm naturally good at.  I feel like God's admonition to Adam in Genesis 3:19 was given to me: "By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread, Until you return to the ground, from which you were taken."  In truth every modicum of success I've ever had has been the result of stubborn effort and on the day that my effort ceases, then I'll likely cease as well.  Not even "success": even the failures have been the result of hard stubborn work.

And I'm hardly alone.  Read the story of Mother Angelica, Saint Teresa, Saint John of the Cross or for that matter, Saints Peter and Paul.  Most of the really great human stories that we hear are about people struggling against disability, disease, misfortune and temptation.  How can the Gospel passage above apply to any of us?

But something about that occurred to me.  One of my neighbors has an apple tree which extends over his back yard into the alley. Right now, it's dropping apples at a steady rate as the cold weather finally kicks in.  The squirrels run up and eat the apples and haul what they can back to their burrows (or wherever squirrels go).  My neighbor probably isn't too happy if the squirrels eat the apples right out of his tree, but anything that falls in the alley is fair game. God is providing for them.

But squirrels have a hard life.  I see them run back and forth across my back fence and they are harassed constantly.  Birds swoop down and peck at them if they get too close.   They have to fight other squirrels for what the birds don't steal.  Any dogs in the backyard will give chase if they wander into view.  Yet they survive and God gives them what they need to survive.  He doesn't take away the struggle, He makes the struggle pay off.

When Jesus says "Look at the birds in the sky... your heavenly Father feeds them."  He does, but birds eat voraciously to support the constant effort that is is there life.  Jesus says a verse later that the wildflowers are clothed more elegantly than even Solomon.  Indeed!  But plants dig into the hard soil and even crack rocks with their roots to stay alive.

The passage above doesn't promise and easy life.  It promises that effort will pay off.  On the other hand, it doesn't guarantee misery.  This is not the Winston Churchill school of motivation:  “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.”  We give glory to God by fulfilling the role that God has for us.  And that brings a certain peace and joy, and perhaps even comfort.  But it never excuses us from the work at hand.