Quote of the Day

On Mathew 6:

Anxiety creates its own treasures and they in turn beget further care.  When we seek for security in possessions we are trying to drive out care with care, and the net result is the precise opposite of our anticipations.  The fetters which bind us to our possessions prove to be cares themselves.
The way to misuse our possessions is to use them as an insurance against the morrow.  Anxiety is always directed to the morrow, whereas goods are in the strictest sense meant only for today.  Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.  The only way to win assurance is by leaving to-morrow entirely in the hands of God and by receiving from him all we need for to-day.  If instead of receiving God's gifts for to-day we worry about tomorrow, we find ourselves helpless victims of infinite anxiety.  "Be not anxious for the morrow" : either that is cruel mockery for the poor and wretched, the very people Jesus is talking to who, humanly speaking really will starve if they do not make provision to-day.  Either it is an intolerable law, which men will reject with indignation; or it is the unique proclamation of the gospel of the glorious liberty of the children of God, who have a Father in heaven, a Father who has given his beloved Son.  How shall not God with him also freely give us all things?
"Be not anxious for the morrow"."  this is not to be taken as a philosophy of life or a moral law:  it is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and only so can it be understood.  Only those who follow him and know him can receive this word as a promise of the love of his Father and as a deliverance from the thraldom of material things.  It is not care that frees the disciples from care, but their faith in Jesus Christ.  Only they know that we cannot be anxious(verse 27).  The coming day, even the coming hour, are placed beyond our control.  It is senseless to pretend that we can make provision because we cannot alter the circumstances of this world.  Only God can take care, for it is He who rules the world.  Since we cannot take care, since we are so completely powerless, we ought not to do it either.  If we do, we are dethroning God and presuming to rule the world ourselves.

"Now mark ye, no beast worketh for his sustenance, but each hath his proper function, according to which he seeketh and findeth his own food.  The bird doth fly and sing, she maketh nests and beareth young.  That is her work, but yet she doth not nourish herself thereby.  Oxen plough, horses draw carts and fight, sheep give wool, milk, and cheese, for it is their function so to do.  But they do not nurture themselves thereb.  Nay, the earth bringeth forth grass, and nurtureth them through God's blessing.  Likewise it is man's bounden duty to work and do things, and yet withal to know that it is Another who nurtureth him:  it is not his own work, but the bounteous blessing of God.  It is true  that the bird doth neither sow nor reap, yet would she die of hunger if she flew not in search of food.  But that she findeth the same is not her work, bu tthe goodness of God.  For who put the food there, that she might find it?  For where God hath put nought, none findeth, even though the whole worl dwere to work itself to death in search therefof.'(Luther).

- From Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book, The Cost of Discipleship