By: Pastor Anthony L. Scott
First Baptist Church North Tulsa
One of my life verses is Lamentations 3:23, which says, “Great is His faithfulness; His loving-kindness begins afresh each day.” I have to remind myself of this promise when too concerned with upcoming prospects and possibilities that are beyond my reach. For just as God promised the Children of Israel meat in the evening and bread in the morning, He still assures His children of His daily concern and provision.
We humans want security above all else to guard us against the prospects and uncertainties of tomorrow. Yet our Lord tells us to pray, ‘Give us this day our daily bread.” This is not a word encouraging carelessness or improvidence. We are being told there are some things we cannot save up for the future; the great values of life have to be gathered fresh every morning.
Some seek protection against the future through government promises, personal safety in the form of social security, retirement, and economics. Yet insurance is not assurance. For physical security does not settle the main problems. Jesus again reminds us, “Man does not live by bread alone”. He never counsels us to retreat from life and live in an isolated safe environment, but is always careful to point out that after we have solved the temporal problems, we still have not dealt with the main issues of life. The Gospel recognizes that the material side of life is important, but not the whole story, because it does not bring us contentment as we were promised. It is reassuring to repeat the words of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4:11-12, “for I have learned to get along happily whether I have much or little. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of contentment in every situation.”
The important things just cannot be gathered in advance. We have to trust God to provide daily for us. While we must face each day and its unpredictability, we also can and must face it with faith. We are dependent upon God’s care daily, and we acknowledge it every morning with renewed confidence as we never drift beyond His love and care.
There is an old legend of three princes of Seredip, which is the ancient name for Ceylon. Wherever they went they never found what they were seeking, but they found something better. Sir Horace Walpole, writing to a friend in 1754, commented on the story and coined the word-serendipity. It means finding something unexpectedly, greater than the thing which you were seeking consciously. It means experiencing something which could never have been found unless we were seeking something else. In our search for security we will always find the One in whom we can be secure.
