"Not even a sparrow, worth only half a penny, can fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father! And the very hairs of your head are all numbered!" Matthew 10:29-30
Let us learn to see and acknowledge God's hand in all we have and in all we meet with. Such a deep and abiding persuasion of the Most High God, ordering and over-ruling all our concerns, would, like the light, diffuse a luster and a beauty upon everything around us! To consider every comfort of life as an effect and proof of God's mercy towards us, would, like the fabled magic stone, turn all our possessions to gold and stamp a value upon things which a common eye might judge as insignificant.
The eye of divine providence is upon every single fluttering sparrow of the field. Nor can we properly term any circumstance of our lives as small, since such things that seem most trifling in themselves do often give birth to things which become most important. On the other hand, to be able to discover the wisdom and goodness of our heavenly Father, through the darkest cloud of troubles and afflictions, to see all our trials appointed to us in number, weight, and measure; nothing befalling us by chance, nothing without it being needed, nothing without a support, nothing without a divinely designed advantage--what a support must this be to the soul!
Take away this truth of divine providence and man is the most forlorn, helpless and miserable object in the world! He would be pining for everything he has not and trembling for everything he has! He would be equally suffering under the pressure of what does happen and the fear of what may happen! He would be liable to thousands of unsuspected dangers, yet unable to guard against those which are most obvious!
Let us learn the secret of being content in any and every situation: "Our heavenly Father knows what we have need of, before we ask Him!" "The earth is His, and the fullness thereof;" and His goodness is equal to His power. In Christ, He has already given us more than ten thousand worlds!
Are you poor? Be satisfied with the Lord's appointment. It would be as easy to Him to give you a large estate as to supply you with the bread you eat or to continue the breath in your nostrils. But He sees that having less is best for some and that prosperity might prove their ruin! Therefore He has appointed them the honor of being in this respect, conformable to their Lord, who, when on earth, "had nowhere to lay His head!"
- John Newton
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