I’ve learned a very important lesson the past two months during this pandemic.  I wonder if you have learned the same lesson?  I’ve always looked around the world where people live in abject poverty and hand-to-mouth existence and felt compassion for them.  I think back historically on the Great Depression in America as people lived in hand-to-mouth existence and think: NOT ME.  I never ever even one single time imagined that could happen to me.  I have a 65-year track record of eating every day.  I’ve always thought I have plenty of reserve and even if things get tough around the world I will always have enough food (and toilet paper).  But lately I’ve been thinking: what if the American economy were to stay shut down for another 30-60-90 days.  What will happen?  Unemployment will exceed that of the Great Depression.  It’s very possible that it will result in food shortages.  And, when people get desperate, there will be a definite increase in crime – maybe even at my door.  I might even end up standing in a food line all day like they do in some countries.  My point is that we are way more fragile than we’ve ever imagined.  We are just a smidgen from some really tough times.  We might think we’re safe and that we’ll always have plenty to eat; however, the reality is we’re never very far removed from living in hand-to-mouth existence.  And the lesson I learned is that I must always stay close to God and stay in the hands of God where there is an abundance of eternal life.  I need to stay dependent on the Lord to provide.  I hope it is a lesson we all learn.  Read Deuteronomy 8:1-3 and Matthew 6:19-34. Then listen to In the hands of God by Newsboys.

Deuteronomy 8:1-3

Do Not Forget the Lord

Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

Matthew 6:19-34

Treasures in Heaven

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Do Not Worry

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.