“Take No Thought for Your Life What Ye Shall Eat or What Ye Shall Drink”

Bryan Richards

Bruce R. McConkie

"…a special rule applies to those who are called to go into the world … and preach the gospel. For the time and season of their missionary service they are to have no concern about business enterprises or temporal pursuits. They are to be free of the encumbering obligations that always attend those who manage temporal affairs. Their whole attention and all of their strength and talents are to be centered on the work of the ministry, and they have the Father's promise that he will look after their daily needs." (Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 1:243.)

Hugh Nibley

"We have been permitted to come here to go to school, to acquire certain knowledge and take a number of tests to prepare us for greater things hereafter. This whole life, in fact, is 'a state of probation' (2 Nephi 2:21). While we are at school our generous patron has provided us with all the necessities of living that we will need to carry us through. Imagine, then, that at the end of the first school year your kind benefactor pays the school a visit. He meets you and asks you how you are doing. 'Oh,' you say, 'I am doing very well, thanks to your bounty.' 'Are you studying a lot?' 'Yes, I am making good progress.' 'What subjects are you studying?' 'Oh, I am studying courses in how to get more lunch.' 'You study that? All the time?' 'Yes. I thought of studying some other subjects. Indeed I would love to study them—some of them are so fascinating!—but after all it's the bread-and-butter courses that count. This is the real world, you know. There is no free lunch.' 'But my dear boy, I'm providing you with that right now.' 'Yes, for the time being, and I am grateful—but my purpose in life is to get more and better lunches; I want to go right to the top—the executive suite, the Marriott lunch.'
"…I once had a university fellowship for which I had to agree not to accept any gainful employment for the period of a year—all living necessities were supplied: I was actually forbidden to work for lunch. Was it free lunch? I never worked so hard in my life—but I never gave lunch a thought. I wasn't supposed to. I was eating only so that I could do my work; I was not working only so that I could eat. And that is what the Lord asks us: to forget about lunch, and do his work, and the lunch will be taken care of." (Approaching Zion, p. 211-12)

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