Mysticism & Gospel of Thomas – No. 36 – Turning to the Essential

Verse - Turning to the Essential

Jesus said, "Do not worry from morning to evening and from evening to morning about what you will eat or what you will wear. You are much better than the lilies, which neither scratch nor tumble. If you have no clothing, what will you wear? Who will add something to your stature? The Whole will give you your clothing."

Comment

What Christ is saying is a repetition of the same warning not to overlook or neglect the more essential inner and eternal because of the external and temporal, with the attainment of which all other worries and problems of everyday life will find their solution by themselves - from within. Ask for the great and the small will be given to you; ask for the heavenly and the earthly will be given to you. Beggars beg for small gifts. Those who know that they are children of God will ask for the great, which is their inheritance. For the lasting, the heavenly - in the certainty that the lesser, the earthly, will be given to them.

The unawakened worry and ponder during the day and in the hours of the night: "Will I have what I need to live tomorrow, next year and in old age?" - and in doing so they obscure the present and the future. But the wise man's desire is to strive for the essential and imperishable - for the kingdom of God and his order. His prayer is thanksgiving for the everlasting invisible guidance and support. It is precisely this turning to the essential and the grateful disposition that causes the sources of abundance to flow and leads those who behave correctly in the certainty of inner stability to ever higher levels of being and knowledge as well as well-being and prosperity.