One Apple at a Time

When I was a little boy," wrote H. P. Barker, "I used to help my mother store away apples. Putting my arms around ever so many, I tried to carry them all at once. I managed for a step or two, but then out fell one, and then another, and two or three more, till the apples were rolling all over the floor.

"Mother laughed. Putting my tiny hands around one apple, she then suggested that I take that one and then carry the others in the same way.'

Mr. Barker made the following application: "Don't try to put your arms around a year or even a week. Rather say, 'Here is another day begun. Lord, help me to live it for You. Give me just now the help and strength that I need.'"

What good advice! Rather than anxiously projecting our selves beyond the present, we are to take one step at a time. If we try to carry all of tomorrow's burdens today, we may collapse under the load. Jesus said, "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the (lay is its own trouble" (Matt. 6:34).

How foolish it is to borrow trouble from tomorrow! We can trust God to meet our needs every day. So let's take just one "apple" at a time. -RWD

For all His children God desires
A life of calm, not flurry;
His will for every day is this:
That they should trust, not worry

WORRY IS CARRYING A BURDEN GOD NEVER INTENDED US TO BEAR