-- By D. Solomon Workar, Jr.

Liberia -- People are rightfully concerned about how they will pay for the roof over their head, clothes to wear and food to eat. It can be very easy for anyone to fall into this trap of thinking that their source of supply begins with what they do, how much money they earn and the decision they have made in life.

Every one of us has the spiritual authority to rely on a source much greater then ourselves.  In his book, Belief for Dynamic Living, Wendell M. Graham said, “For some, life seems aimless and pointless. But for committed Christians, life is purposeful and dynamic. The difference comes from knowing Christ and putting biblical beliefs to work in all our relationships.”

I have found a modern wisdom in some words of Jesus Christ. “Be ye the fowls of the air for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly father feeds them. “ (Matthew 6:26,28)  Through my own experiences of uncertainty about my physical well-being, I have come to realize that the Lord is my strength and refuge, and is my ever-present help in times of trouble.

From hope to despair
During my years in high school, my life seemed brimming with hope and opportunities. I was glamorizing life as a youth, making choices on my own.  An enrollment to achieve college education was added to my feeling that another chapter of my life was beginning and that I was doing good. But these dreams were overshadowed at that time by the Liberia civil crisis, which devastated my parent’s property and plunged us into an abject poverty and homelessness. As local farmers it was a very difficult situation for my parents, who were unable to pay for our education.

My whole life was in trouble. I was frustrated and so confused. Life had turned, to me, in a very different perspective. It was not easy. As children growing up, we should have had lots of opportunities to think and play, but we found ourselves obsessively focused on how to even get food on the table to eat.

These problems felt enormous and dark. Issues such as the pressure of life, worthlessness and depression were often brought to the table and made life seem so hopeless. I felt lost and I had difficulties in focusing on all the good in my life. I had to sometimes learn through major discomfort to wrestle down and quiet the aggressive impulses that threatened my peace of mind and health. Those habits soon escalated in self-aggressive behavior.   I joined my friends in the ghetto and started to drink excessively to dose myself when I started thinking about my situation and the whole of life.

Several months later I started getting unwanted attention from others. They either came out of genuine concern or disdain for how unhealthy I looked. The latter often came from complete strangers. My parents were also praying for our situation and for guidance on how to help me. Since we had always enjoyed a close relationship, we regularly sat together and they would talk to me about my separated relationship from God.  Despite their help, I continued to feel so far from myself and from God.

I was completely surprised to find myself encountering a death and life situation. Every step I made both left and right was fruitless; all doors I knocked on for help were closed; no help. I became so offset and I thought to myself that I was a failure in life.  My appearance looked very ragged, and people thought I was a crazy person.

Choosing a master
One day, when my mother saw me she began to cry and went to her bedroom and began to pray. When I walked after her and saw her kneeling down and praying tirelessly, I became aware of my deepest need. I could feel that the help I needed could only come from God.  I came to see that financial worry was one of the worst forms of bondage during this time of my life. When I turned wholeheartedly to understanding the spiritual reality that I was discovering from the Bible, I encountered an entirely different set of demands on my life.

They were all summed up for me in this statement, “No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate one and love the other. Or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and man. Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor ye for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not life more than meat and the body more than raiment?” (Matthew 6:24-25).

When I first considered the demands in these words, my eyes opened wide. I realized this meant that I was to endeavor to have the mind of Christ, to perceive everything and everyone through a mental lens of the spirit. To live, think and be able to obtain through a spiritual capacity.

Since that wake-up moment, I have continued to grow in my understanding that anyone or anything created by God is naturally sustained. God’s presence in our lives supplies the love and joy found in valued relationships, the intelligence and the worth expressed in steady employment, the truth of a unique and lasting job, the substance behind an enduring and sufficient income. As these ideas became real to me, I gradually gained freedom from my obsessive concerns about how to get the necessities of life.

Hope for the future
The Lord has continued to be great to me. Today I am blessed to be going for higher education at the University of Liberia by the help of the Nazarene District Student Scholarship fund and other friends. My parents also are totally blessed with a big Nazarene church, which my father Solomon Workar, Senior, pastors.

Needless to say, opportunities abound for individuals who are gaining the core ability to reflect God. With God’s help, we have access to all the spiritual qualities needed to gain and hold down a rewarding job and durable income.   Wisdom, joy, understanding, mercy and grace are ready for full expression in your life by anyone who recognizes their source is in God; not one’s human life.

In my unity with God, I found myself in a “field ready to harvest,” fully equipped to utilize the grace, talents and ideas that God constantly supplies to me. And as I learned to lean on God alone, and really made efforts to reach His guidance in action, I began to feel protected and constantly blessed. Each day I look up for progress and each day I have new ideas that I am actively pursuing.