Live Wisely for the Day, Fret Not of Tomorrow

2005-11-03 Posted at 11:23:07 PM

I found this newspaper article in my Grandmother’s clippings. It was written in 1950 by M. Jane Scott. I found a couple of them and I thought them worthy of sharing. I hope that M. Jane Scott if she is still living does not mind, and that if any of her family are still around that they will be able to appreciate her work a second time around. It rings as true now as it did 55 years ago.

Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday, and all is well, says an old adage. There is much food for thought in the words for this day when the high cost of living and tension is playing havoc with nerves and bank accounts. Because so many of us are among the group who fretted yesterday about today’s worries, we are physically unequipped to do today’s work; we are physically and mentally exhausted. Why this waste of energy? Where does it get us?

Many people who are nearing the age for retirement believe they are faced with hardship because their savings have been cut down by inflationary prices. We know that their problem is a real one and we would not minimize it, but at the same time we believe that many of these harassed souls are unduly worried about the future.

Our problems are not greater than the problems of past generations. In fact, we have the advantages of increased knowledge and improved conditions. The leaven of Christianity has so worked its way into the consciousness of the nation that there is little likelihood that any Canadian shall starve to death. This is especially true of people who have put their trust in God.

Said David: “I have been young and now I am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.” (Psalm 37:25) And many living people concur with David. But, too few people accept their bread as from the hand of God. The trouble begins here, in our thinking; we lose sight of the Almighty.

We chant the creed: “I believe in God,” but we do not believe that He has as much interest in our welfare as an earthly parent has for his child. We are not too sure that God is still on the throne, and quite capable of providing for us as generously as He did when we came into the world helpless babes.

We are living in the days that are fulfilling the highest hopes of our forebears. They dreamed of shorter hours and higher pay; they visualized hospitals, parks and shops; they longed for rapid transportation, better homes and machinery with which to harness the forces of the world.

All of these things have become realities, and yet, with them, is the haunting fear that the future is insecure. Our trouble is not so much lack of things but lack of faith, and we covet a simple, childlike faith for every aging man and woman. “Except ye become as little children” you cannot know the contentment that comes to those who leave the future with God.

"When God sends little mouths, He sends something to fill them,” we once heard a new father exclaim. How true! From the cradle to the grave, God’s provision comes meal by meal. When He ordered the children of Israel to get out of Egypt He promised to supply their needs. The account of the trek through the wilderness and the marvellous provision of manna for their sustenance is one of the best-loved Bible stories. It is no more a miracle than many things that are happening today. These are days when at any moment a new discovery may be made which will outrival the miracle of the manna. God has the power to release His knowledge when the need arises, and we believe that He intends to do so for the benefit of those who put their trust in Him.

Northing in life reduces our efficiency like carrying the worries of tomorrow with the work of today. It is an age-old mental attitude that Jesus recognized among the people of His day; they were worried about food, shelter and raiment – the same things that occupy our thinking, sap our energy. When Jesus saw the haggard faces on His contemporaries He was moved with compassion and He tried to transfer some of His faith in God into their anxious hearts.

In simple, beautiful language He advised them; “Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink, nor yet for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Take a look at the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field…they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these…If God give you life; if God feeds the fowl and clothes the lilies…shall He not much more clothe and feed you, O ye of little faith?” (Matthew 6:25-30)

If you are one of those whose heart is fearful about the future, let me recommend the 37^th Psalm to you. It is cheering reading for men and women who are facing retirement on a small pension. We need to let its message of hope burn into our troubled minds these hectic times: “Trust in the Lord, and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land and truly, you shall be fed.”

Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday, and all is well. All will still be well 10, 15, 20 or 100 years from now, if we go out into the future with our hand in the hands of God, living day by day, instead of projecting ourselves into the uncertain tomorrow.

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you."

Something to think about.

Fran Watson

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