One day Louisa Stead (1850-1917) with her husband and four-year-old daughter went to enjoy the beach at Long Island, New York. While there, they heard a call for help from a young child in the water. Mr. Stead went to rescue the young boy but instead both he and the child were drowned. Louisa and her daughter were left alone and came to experience great poverty in their life. One day she found some food and money had been left for her on her doorstep. She was so moved by this kindness that she would later write:
'Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to take Him at His word,
Just to rest upon His promise,
Just to know, “Thus saith the Lord.”
In the thirty-seventh Psalm David declared, “I have been young and now I am old. Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread” (Psa. 37:25 NASB).
David wrote this psalm for the purpose of encouraging those children of God who were disturbed by the prosperity of the wicked. In the course of this psalm David expresses his belief that God will take care of His children. Scholars are not agreed as to whether this was meant by David to be an “invariable law of God”, or merely his own personal observation. But at the very least it seems that David is offering this as an encouragement that the righteous can depend upon God to care for them.
Our Lord spoke to this assurance in the Sermon on the Mount, when He taught, “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?" (Matt. 6:26)
The implication is that we are of greater importance than the birds of the air. Therefore, we can trust that God will take care of us as He cares for the birds.
- Tim D. Shoemaker