Day by Day Faith

The weather was nearly perfect as Dorry and I walked around the Garden of Reflection, a beautiful memorial garden near our home. It was just what I needed. Yesterday was the end of a hectic, even frantic work week that left me on edge, and the stakes only get higher in the week ahead. But today, I've set all of that aside. Today, I'm just enjoying the day. 

Dorry at the Garden of Reflection

A day like today - sandwiched between a trying week behind me and a daunting week ahead - usually threatens to pull me into a spiral of anxiety. When I'm harried by what's behind me and worried by what's ahead, everything looks worse, every challenge appears insurmountable. But that didn't happen to me today. What made the difference? Was it something I ate?

I found a sermon in my dad's barrel that recalled God's promise to give the people of Israel something to eat each morning as they wandered through the wilderness after escaping slavery in Egypt. "Every morning, they found a strange white substance on the ground. They saw it and called it manna, meaning 'what is it?' The manna tasted like wafers made with honey. Morning after morning, as the people gathered their manna, the way of God's provision should have become clear to them. Those who out of fear and greed went around madly gathering as much as they could discovered that when they were through, they had nothing left over. Likewise, those who only gathered a little found that theirs was sufficient for their needs. A strange substance this manna, to shrink and stretch like that, just according to the attitude of its user. And perhaps it was not so strange after all. It is simply God's manner of giving - enough, and that is all."

"The promise of God was that the manna would be there every morning - fresh and new upon the ground. But there were some who thought they better save some manna for the next day, just in case. Just in case what? Well, just in case God didn't keep his promise. They didn't say that out loud; usually, they just rationalized. You know, 'Make hay while the sun shines.'  But the next morning, the rotten, stinky stuff pungently reminded them of their little faith. As they held their nose with one hand and they scraped it out of their bowls with the other, they must have come a little closer to understanding this God who was leading them to the promised land with no more guarantee than his word, his promise. What a contrast between that beautiful, white manna eaten on the very day for which it was given and that wormy, moldy ooze stored away for the future by anxious men of little faith."

"This graphic illustration foreshadowed the words of Jesus many hundreds of years later, as he stood on a hill and said: "So do not worry saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' ... [D]o not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matthew 6:31, 34). 

"God's blessings are meant to be used, and to be used as they are given, a day at a time. They are for now; they do not secure the future. Thus it is that we pray, as Jesus taught us, 'Give us this day our daily bread.' Our Israelite fore-bearers - worshipers of the same gracious, giving God whom we worship - learned about daily bread as they went through the wilderness on their way to the promised land. We too are the people of God, on a journey through the wilderness of this world, pointed toward a promised land that our Lord often called the Kingdom of God. God has called us to a mission; God has promised us the presence of his Spirit on the way. And yet our meager faith finds it difficult to grasp that promise firmly. In our wilderness there is plenty of food and water, but fear grips us because there are so many other things that threaten our material security: bombs, pollution, economic uncertainty, crime, illness, family break-down, just to name a few. Each of us has our own special enemies - those things that worry us and make us forget God and his promise."

"What God gave us yesterday was for yesterday, not today or tomorrow. Will we simply open ourselves anew to whatever blessings God gives us today? That is the way God gives, and that is the only way we can rightly receive - a day at a time, enough for our needs."

"What a new, fresh security the Israelites must have felt when they learned God's way of giving. How it must have freed them of anxiety and released them to stop worrying about themselves. How it must have freed them to love others and give of themselves throughout their demanding journey. It is so simply and matter-of-factly stated at the end of the story: 'They ate manna, until they came to the border of Canaan.' (Exodus 16:35)."

"So may we eat, and so may we be satisfied, and so may we be freed to give to others as God in Christ has given to us."        

This morning, I ate manna of a sort. I ate a breakfast that I helped to prepare and share with two homeless families staying at a nearby shelter. As God gave them food that they needed, God gave me some much-needed perspective. If these families in such great need can count on the goodness of strangers to feed and house them until they can get back on their feet, surely I can count on God to sustain me - day by day - through the challenging week ahead.  

"Manna in the Wilderness"

Scripture: Exodus 16; Matt.6:25-34

Preached in 1971

Grace United Methodist Church

Millersville, PA    

The Fear Factor

I'm an attorney. To be more precise, I'm a civil litigator ... the kind of lawyer who fights to win disputes, in court and out, between my client and others. In the movie Clueless, the character Cher put it well when she said, "Daddy's a litigator. Those are the scariest kind of lawyer."

This past week was a big one for this litigator. I was able to settle a major class action lawsuit for a fraction of the very large demand for money that was made by my adversary. I had been working hard on this case for well over a year, chipping away at my adversary's claims, positioning the case for the best possible outcome for my client. It had kept me up nights. It had been the source of much worry for me in my waking hours.  And now, it was over ... done ... finished. I could relax.

But I couldn't relax. Within a day or two of reaching this great settlement, worries crept in: What about my other cases that received less than my full attention while this big one was going on? What time-bombs might be ticking in those neglected files? Somehow, a week for celebration became just another week of worries. How did I manage to do that to myself? If I'm the scariest kind of lawyer, why am I running scared?

Munch's The Scream

I'm not alone as a worrier. I know that my father battled anxieties. He wrote at least six sermons I've found in the barrel talking about worry. My dad described my past week to a T when he wrote, "[I]f we don't have big things to worry about, we find little things to worry about. If there is nothing at all, then we usually find ourselves being anxious over what might happen. This all goes to prove that anxiety is a basic human condition. On the surface, it shows itself in many ways, attaches itself to many concerns -- whether they be large or small or nonexistent -- but underneath it is a condition of spiritual insufficiency that wells up within us, finding its expression within us in these many ways. ... [I]f we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that we are not just afraid of this or that, but that we are simply afraid, period. We are by nature fearful."

Why are we, by nature, so fearful? There is "a condition of sin that infests every one of us ... a basic defiant spirit in us that causes us to misuse our God-given freedom and to think that we are self-reliant and independent ... a persistent drive that tells us that life will be better if we assume total responsibility for ourselves. That is sin; that is rebellion against God. [I]t results in fear and anxiety because, try as we may, we can't take care of ourselves. Time and again we flub, or we get tired of holding up the front of self-sufficiency, and anxiety creeps in. We discover that by our own choice we are out there all alone, and we're just not equal to it." 

Jesus had something to say to us as we struggle with our anxieties. My father paraphrased Jesus' words from the Sermon on the Mount this way:

• Of course if things you value are perishable, you're always going to be in a quandary over them. Why not value imperishable spiritual values which can never be taken away from you?
• And, of course, you're going to be up tight if you try to serve two competing loyalties. Then you can't be true to either one. Make up your mind. Will it be God or money?
• How ridiculous it is to worry about food and drink and clothing and houses and cars and the rest. Tend to the important things first, and God will give you what you really need. Would he have created you without providing the means for your care?
• And don't be anxious about tomorrow.  Just do your best to plan for it; tackle it with all you've got, and then step back and leave the results up to God. With all the worrying everybody ever did, when has it ever done them any good? 

"How do you find this simple faith that lets you be at peace? ... This is what it takes: No more struggle and work on your part. Just a simple realization that God is always there, all the time, supporting your very existence. Your beauty and security as a person -- the full flowering of your humanity -- is found in the simple acceptance of your total dependence upon God. [It is found] in recognizing the fact that you are God's child, and then just being it -- just as a bird is a bird and a lily is a lily -- with no thought of trying to be more. This is faith."

From: "Crippled By Anxiety"

Scripture: Matthew 6:19-34