Dear Friends,
In his Tales of the Hasidim, Martin Buber recounts the following story.
Rabbi Yehiel Mikhal lived in great poverty, but not for an hour did happiness desert him. Someone once asked him, “Rabbi, how can you pray day after day, Blessed be Thou…who has supplied my every need? For surely you lack everything a man has need of!” Rabbi Mikhal replied: “What I need is, most likely, poverty – and that is what I have been supplied with.”
This is trust in the highest degree. Of course the Lord wants us to bring him our desire for good things. Consider how often he asks some variation of “What are you looking for?” And yet he also asks us to trust that, in the final analysis, he alone knows what we most need, and that he will supply it.
As Rabbi Mikhal learned, God’s providence may take unexpected forms: He may not offer what we would like. But it will be what our hearts need to grow in faith, in hope, and in love. It will be what we need in order to surrender still more to the Lord who loves us, and who is always working for our good (Romans 8:28).
And no matter what shape God’s providence takes, he wants to give us the grace to pray with Psalm 52: “I will trust in your goodness, O Lord, forever and ever.”
God bless you,
Fr. John Pietropaoli
