It had been a tough week. It was one of those weeks when I dreaded getting the mail or answering the phone. It seemed like all of the news was just bad. Jan looked at me, ran her fingers through my hair and packed me off to the boat. “Somebody needs some quiet time,” she said. “Why don’t you go out to the boat and unwind?” Jan packed me some snacks and pulled my wool watch cap down around my ears.
A short time later, I dragged the dinghy down the beach and waded out into the bay. Soon the water was doing it’s magic. With each stroke of the oars, I could feel my body and, more importantly, my soul beginning to relax. The sun was setting behind Coronado: a ball of red fire. As I climbed up the side of our old wooden boat, the stars were beginning to “pop.” Sirius, the “dog star,” appeared above the Coronado bridge quickly followed by Jupiter and Orion. There was an unusual chill in the air and the heat from the oil lamps felt good. Wrapped in my sleeping bag, sipping a mug of steaming tomato soup, I started reading the Sermon on the Mount:
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble,” (Jesus, Matthew 6:25-34).
Those were the words I needed to hear. Do you? Isn’t our Father wonderful?