The Providential Role of Insecurity

GOD is not the enemy of security. He wants man to earn the daily bread for his old age by his labor. He wants society to guard against depressions and to guarantee to all a life protected by law. He requires certain privileged individuals to come to the aid of their brothers in need, especially, as it frequently happens, when society is powerless to help.

Does that imply then that God cannot permit insecurity for someone’s good? Certainly not. It is so easy to abuse security:

• Perhaps through selfishness by skimping one’s life, refusing the entrance of love into one’s life or setting up barriers to the possible gift of children from Divine Providence.
• Perhaps by purely pagan prudence, the attitude of the wicked rich in the Gospel, I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones.
• Perhaps by pride. What is Divine Providence anyway? I have money and the means of making it bring in more. God doesn’t count.

In addition to its already precious role of crushing false hopes of security conceived by pagan-mindedness, insecurity has power proper to itself.

It forces us to think of God. Here I am, I have done all that I could, worked my best, saved without being niggardly but with legitimate prudence and now I am struck by a catastrophe—the death of the head of the family, or an untimely accident, war . . . I have nothing left, or if it is not so bad as that, Trial has at least made deep inroads on the possessions I had.

What should I do? Get discouraged? Never!

I will call up all my energy; try to salvage from the present situation whatever can help my best efforts and count on Divine Providence without in the least neglecting foresight. God helps those who help themselves.

I must believe that Our Lord surrounds those who find themselves in need through no fault of their own with a special predilection. “Do not forget,” wrote a navy lieutenant to his wife at the outbreak of the war of 1914, “that uncertainty permits us to count more on God . . . riches hide some of God’s delicate attentions from us . . . We have the best of the game with God.”

What a beautiful expression of faith! Since human aid can so easily fail, God owes it to Himself to come to the aid of those who put their trust in Him. “We have the best of the game with God!”

Consequently, abandonment to God is in keeping with wise foresight.

A person does his best to avoid falling into a state of need. If God requires that all or much of his efforts come to naught, he ought not despair; let him submit valiantly to the yoke again; if he has a lively faith, he will thank God for having permitted “the caresses of poverty.” The individual of himself could never have achieved the actual poverty of religious life; he can now at least accept the privations permitted by Providence and strive to live more literally the Gospel precept: “Make for yourself purses that do not grow old, a treasure unfailing in heaven, where neither thief draws near nor moth destroys.” Luke XII, 33.