Anxiety and the daily miracle
You know the singular most painful story for me in the Bible? The one that never fails to bring me to the floor?
It’s Matthew 8:5–13. It’s the story of how a Roman — a gentile! — came to Jesus and asked Him to heal his servant. Jesus agreed and said he would go, but in a feat of faith that will echo through the ages, the Roman said there was no need to physically be there.
“Only say the word and he will be healed. Anything you command in this world will happen. I know it. Even this.”
To most people, this is a story about hope. It speaks of the glory of Jesus and the power of faith. But not for me. For me, it’s about silence.
How many times have I asked for the same thing for my son? And I know it’s not my faith in question (because it’s not about the size of the faith, it’s about whom you’ve placed your faith in). But time and again, only silence.
I was contemplating this the other day when out of nowhere, this one line from The Lord’s Prayer came to me:
Give us this day our daily bread
THIS day (and this day only)
our
daily
bread
It’s a lesson oft repeated. When the Jews were brought out of Egypt and out of slavery, while they were roaming the desert with nothing to eat, while the pangs of an empty stomach made them grumble against the Lord, the Lord gave them meat in the evening and manna in the morning. The Lord gave them what they needed.
But only for that day. They were instructed not to keep any (except for the Sabbath). The food they kept from the day before spoiled and was covered in maggots. They couldn’t gather an excess and be complacent. No. That would not do — especially for a people who spent nearly 400 years living in a land with foreign gods. A people who, at the first opportunity, would create a golden calf and worship it because that’s what they were familiar with. The lesson needed to be drilled into them repeatedly: they needed to depend on the Lord for survival. Every. Single. Day.
The miracle will come in the morning.
It’s a hard lesson, especially for a parent with a child with special needs — a child so broken that living independently would likely never happen. It doesn’t matter how much my wife and I prepare our son or even how much money we’re able to save for him for when we’re gone.
No. We will need His mercy, His miracle every morning.
The lesson is echoed again in the New Testament. That we are to rest our concerns, our fears, and all the things that make us anxious at the foot of the Cross. That we should arrest these thoughts, and instead focus on whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and commendable — things that the Holy Spirit would nurture in us.
Because, as Jesus himself said, even in a broken world where evil runs rampant, do not be anxious. What we need to do is really quite simple.
Look to the lilies. And ask for daily bread.
