"...beyond our grasp..."
This is the third time I've posted this quote from George MacDonald on my blog (I originally found it on Lanier's blog), but there's good reason...I randomly came across it just now as I was browsing some old posts on my blog, and it very much applied to some stuff that I'm going through right now...
"The next hour, the next moment, is as much beyond our grasp and as much in God’s care, as that a hundred years away. Care for the next minute is just as foolish as care for the morrow, or for a day in the next thousand years-in neither can we do anything, in both God is doing everything. Those claims only of the morrow which have to be prepared today are of the duty of today: the moment which coincides with work to be done, is the moment to be minded; the next is nowhere till God has made it.
The care that is filling your mind at this moment, or but waiting till you lay the book aside to leap upon you-that need which is no need, is a demon sucking at the spring of your life. 'No, mine is a reasonable care-and unavoidable care, indeed.' Is it something that you have to do at this very moment? 'No.' Then you are allowing it to usurp the place of something that is required of you this moment. 'There is nothing required of me at this moment.' Nay, but there is-the greatest thing that can be required of man. Trust in the Living God…"
“Therefore I say to you, do not worry 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, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." ~Matthew 6:25-34
"The next hour, the next moment, is as much beyond our grasp and as much in God’s care, as that a hundred years away. Care for the next minute is just as foolish as care for the morrow, or for a day in the next thousand years-in neither can we do anything, in both God is doing everything. Those claims only of the morrow which have to be prepared today are of the duty of today: the moment which coincides with work to be done, is the moment to be minded; the next is nowhere till God has made it.
The care that is filling your mind at this moment, or but waiting till you lay the book aside to leap upon you-that need which is no need, is a demon sucking at the spring of your life. 'No, mine is a reasonable care-and unavoidable care, indeed.' Is it something that you have to do at this very moment? 'No.' Then you are allowing it to usurp the place of something that is required of you this moment. 'There is nothing required of me at this moment.' Nay, but there is-the greatest thing that can be required of man. Trust in the Living God…"
“Therefore I say to you, do not worry 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, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." ~Matthew 6:25-34