Anxiety: Do you face financial problems due to your loved one’s drinking and are you extremely worried about how you will make ends meet? “Stop being anxious,”c counsels Jesus about life’s necessities. “Your heavenly Father knows you need all these things” and he can and will provide for those who make his worship a chief concern in their life. (Matthew 6:25-34) Jesus then gives a most practical suggestion for defeating anxiety​—live one day at a time. Why add tomorrow’s anxieties to today’s? Besides, as one Bible scholar put it: “The future of reality is seldom as bad as the future of our fears.”

However, just knowing Jesus’ words will not relieve anxiety. You must apply them, and that is where real faith comes in. God’s ability and promise to provide for his servants are sure. The only question is: Are we absolutely confident that as long as we diligently work to do our part God will do his part?