Does God provide?

Here is the Gospel for today:

Gospel
Mt 6:24-34

Jesus said to his disciples:
“No one can serve two masters.
He will either hate one and love the other,
or be devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life,
what you will eat or drink,
or about your body, what you will wear.
Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
Look at the birds in the sky;
they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns,
yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are not you more important than they?
Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?
Why are you anxious about clothes?
Learn from the way the wild flowers grow.
They do not work or spin.
But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor
was clothed like one of them.
If God so clothes the grass of the field,
which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow,
will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?
So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’
or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’
All these things the pagans seek.
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 given you besides.
Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.
Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”

I admit, this is one of those Gospels that I have always had a hard time with. I certainly agree that worrying doesn't do us much good. Yes, it is prudent to prepare for life's uncertainties, but constantly worrying about what might happen isn't conducive to enjoying the present moment. The message not to worry doesn't trouble me.

What does trouble me is that God promises that He will provide, and yet so many in our world are not provided for. So many in our world are starving. And so, the question becomes how we balance the message of this Gospel with the reality of our world. I do believe that God provides. After all, everything that we have is a gift from God. Without God's providence, we would have nothing. We also have free will, however. We (all of us) have a moral obligation to provide for our hungry brothers and sisters. While God certainly good make all the world's problems go away in a heartbeat if He chose to do so, He chose to give us free will and to make us responsible not only for ourselves, but also for each other. My goodness, how often do we as individuals and as a society screw that up? I certainly don't have the answer to world hunger, but I do know that we are each called to do our part to feed the hungry. God does provide, but He uses us to help the process.

Why some people live in extreme poverty and others live in affluence is one of those mysteries I don't think I'll understand this sign of heaven. This Gospel will continue to trouble me, and I will continue to try to do my part to help those who are hungry by supporting my local food bank and praying. It isn't enough, but at the moment it is all I can do.