Life more
than food, life more than clothing.
Food and
clothes- staples to life. Those living in extreme poverty may have only the
clothes they wear on their backs day in and day out, mere rags and nothing
more. They also might have one meal a day of very little substance or even less
than that. People exist in this fashion everywhere in the world.
Here are a
few statistics-
How
many people in the world are homeless?
Based
on national reports, it's estimated that no less than 150 million people, or
about 2 percent of the world's population, are homeless. However, about 1.6 billion, more than 20 percent of the
world's population, may lack adequate housing.
Go to this
link if you want a bit more information-
Poverty
exists worldwide. There is no place in the world you can take your impoverished
self and expect to be given everything you need not to live hand to mouth.
Life truly
is MORE than food and clothes, and some are in situations beyond their real
control that lead them to die from starvation and exposure.
We are
told that God the Father will provide what we need and this is truth.
Just like
the person who gets it in their head that God must answer their prayers in
extreme situations to prove His love and care, people in general believe that
those left to die of starvation and exposure must be God's enemies because God
most certainly did not provide for them as stated He would. It is an unproven, non-factual thing to
believe. God answers all prayers- people just don't accept or like that He
answers no to their requests and allows tragedies to take place. God knows the
hearts and while even innocents are allowed to suffer horrifically, we cannot
comprehend the love in the allowing, not fully.
The glory
for the innocents will FAR outweigh the tragedies which are but for a moment,
and this holds true in the lives of everyone.
Mat
6:25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye
shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.
Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
Is life
truly more than food and clothes? Or are these the marks of life? They can't
be, not if you live for the world beyond the need of clothes and food and truly
count this world as temporary to that eternity.
Mat
6:26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap,
nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much
better than they?
The
heavenly Father takes care of His own in the comprehension of the eternal over
the temporary, even in the worst of tragedies and the most dire of
circumstances.
Mat
6:27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his
stature?
There are
plenty of things in our lives completely out of our control. Of course mankind
has strived to remedy a lot of these things through artificial means. The man
or woman of little stature may invest in high heels and as we all know, there
are extremes in those. A plain faced person desiring more attractiveness in the
standards of society may go to great lengths to use make up or surgery even to
correct the perceived defect to their natural state. People do a lot of things
artificially but to actually - naturally- without any other means than simply
thinking- no one can fix their perceived flaws. You can't think yourself from
five feet tall to five and one inch tall, you just can't. We live with many limitations that have been
placed beyond our control. We may color our hair differently, we may insert
colored contact lenses in our eyes, we may put dye on our skin to change its
shade, but these are not real changes at all.
God has control and we may not like what He's done with us in particular
or to many people who are born with even extreme deformities, but He allows
what He allows for His purposes beyond our full comprehension.
Mat
6:28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the
field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
Mat
6:29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not
arrayed like one of these.
Mat
6:30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is,
and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of
little faith?
Do we long
for physical clothing or spiritual? I have to ask. God is clothing the entire
field of wildflowers in amazing glory but this does not mean we are all
promised great splendor in our clothing. What matters more? Eternity or
temporary?
Mat
6:31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall
we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
Mat
6:32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly
Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
Mat
6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all
these things shall be added unto you.
Mat
6:34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take
thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil
thereof.
And yet if
we cling to these promises and point to the millions who live homeless,
starving, barely clothed and say they must not trust God to provide, then we
are LIARS! To assume every single poverty stricken person is God-less is beyond
reprehensible.
We have
our answer right there in the 33rd verse… SEEK YE FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD and
HIS RIGHETOUSNESS and all these things SHALL be added unto you.
The heaven
seekers may live a temporary existence of nightmarish proportions, but their
hope for the clothing of Christ's righteousness can be theirs. The Bread of
Eternal Life can be theirs. These spiritual things are eternal, while the
things that are not spiritual are only temporary.
By seeking
the kingdom of God, by seeking the righteousness of God we seek the eternal and
therein lies our hope! God has the way
of His righteousness, the way of His kingdom open for all to enter into should
they choose the eternal.
This is
NOT to say that should we have means to feed and clothe someone we shouldn't do
so and simply talk of the heavenly. This is to say that we talk of the heavenly
and serve the needs of those in poverty while doing so if we can. If we are
among the impoverished and not in a position to help the less fortunate, we
won't be expected to alleviate the needs among ourselves, but we can still
offer future hope in the eternal home of the Kingdom of Heaven.
If we
could ask ourselves every single day- once, twice, consistently throughout the
day, if we are living our lives seeking our heavenly kingdom and the
righteousness of Christ before all else, I wonder what our answers would be.
God help
us.
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