Sitting one still and sunny afternoon in a tiny chapel on an island in the South, I thought I heard someone enter. A young woman was weeping quietly. After a little time I asked if I could help. She confided her fears for the future--what if her husband should die? Or one of her children? What if money ran out?
All our fears represent in some form, I believe, the fear of death, common to all of us. But is it our business to pry into what may happen tomorrow? It is a difficult and painful exercise which saps the strength and uses up the time given us today. Once we give ourselves up to God, shall we attempt to get hold of what can never belong to us--tomorrow? Our lives are His, our times in His hand, He is Lord over what wil1 happen, never mind what may happen. When we prayed "Thy will be done," did we suppose He did not hear us? He heard indeed, and daily makes our business His and partakes of our lives. If my life is once surrendered, all is well. Let me not grab it back, as though it were in peril in His hand but would be safer in mine!
Today is mine. Tomorrow is none of my business. If I peer anxiously into the fog of the future, I will strain my spiritual eyes so that I will not see clearly what is required of me now.
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof"--and the work thereof. The evil is not a part of the yoke Jesus asks us to take. Our work is, and He takes that yoke with us. I will overextend myself if I assume anything more.
God chains the dog till night; wilt loose the chain
And wake thy sorrow?
Wilt thou forestall it, and now grieve tomorrow,
And then again
Grieve over freshly all thy pain?
Either grief will not come, or if it must,
Do not forecast;
And while it cometh, it is almost past.
Away, distrust;
My God hath promis'd; He is just.
-George Herbert, "The Discharge"
By Elisabeth Elliot
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