The Best of the Portals of Prayer

Read: Matthew 6:25-34

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might.”
Ecclesiastes 9:10

Here

There is a tendency in our day to be concerned unduly about worldly problems, to the point of ignoring the duties and responsibilities that lie close at hand. We feel also that our thinking has to be in terms of eras if it is to win any respect. The difficulty that our world faces today are overwhelming. There is no doubt about that. In floundering fashion, we are trying to gain a foothold in a new and soberingly different world – yet we are so fearfully small and weak.
God has a word for us that cuts the problem down to our size. “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might.” Here is a refreshing antidote for the agony of the world that keeps interfering with our small life. It is so easy to neglect the tasks that surround us by concentrating on world affairs about which we can do so little. When we see only the great difficulties that confront us, we easily fall into a mood in which we complain with the French philosopher Renan; “O God, when will it be worthwhile to live?” There is enough in our restrictive environment to tax our abilities and strength. If we set ourselves to the work at hand and cheerfully go about it, we shall learn to sing with the English poet Coleridge; “O God, how glorious it is to live.”

Be with us, O God, and help us see and do the task at hand, that we despair not of the problems of our times. In the name of Christ we ask it. Amen.

June 15, 1946