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He Supplies Our Needs, February 28
Do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink,
nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and
the body more than clothing?
Matthew 6:25
, RSV.
He who has given you life knows your need of food to sustain it. He who created
the body is not unmindful of your need of raiment. Will not He who has bestowed
the greater gift bestow also what is needed to make it complete?
Jesus pointed His hearers to the birds as they warbled their carols of praise,
unencumbered with thoughts of care, for “they sow not, neither do they reap”; and
yet the great Father provides for their needs. And He asks, “Are not ye of much
more value than they?”
“No sparrow falls without His care,
No soul bows low but Jesus knows;
For He is with us everywhere,
And marks each bitter tear that flows.
And He will never, never, never
Forsake the soul that trusts Him ever”....
God’s law is the law of love. He has surrounded you with beauty to teach you
that you are not placed on earth merely to delve for self, to dig and build, to toil and
spin, but to make life bright and joyous and beautiful with the love of Christ—like
the flowers, to gladden other lives by the ministry of love.
Fathers and mothers, let your children learn from the flowers. Take them with
you into garden and field and under the leafy trees, and teach them to read in nature
the message of God’s love. Let the thoughts of Him be linked with bird and flower
and tree. Lead the children to see in every pleasant and beautiful thing an expression
of God’s love for them. Recommend your religion to them by its pleasantness. Let
the law of kindness be in your lips.
Teach the children that because of God’s great love their natures may be changed
and brought into harmony with His. Teach them that He would have their lives
beautiful with the graces of the flowers. Teach them, as they gather the sweet
blossoms, that He who made the flowers is more beautiful than they. Thus the
tendrils of their hearts will be entwined about Him. He who is “altogether lovely”
will become to them as a daily companion and familiar friend, and their lives will
be transformed into the image of His purity (
Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing,
95-98
).
[God] would adorn our characters with His own rich graces. He would have
our words as fragrant as the flowers of the field (
The Review and Herald, May 19,
1896
).
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