God is generous, kind and merciful, always seeking to provide for his children.
Jesus spoke often about the goodness of his heavenly Father and how he provides for all of our essential needs:
Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
Daily bread
At the same time, God does not simply give to us food as if he were a genie, snapping his finger and making bread appear on our plate.
He has invited us to cooperate in the provision of our needs and does not want us to be idle.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church comments on this reality in its section on the Our Father:
"Our bread": The Father who gives us life cannot but give us the nourishment life requires -- all appropriate goods and blessings, both material and spiritual. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus insists on the filial trust that cooperates with our Father's providence. He is not inviting us to idleness, but wants to relieve us from nagging worry and preoccupation. Such is the filial surrender of the children of God.
St. Paul in particular expanded on this spiritual reality in his letters to the Thessalonians:
Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is living in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, we did not eat any one’s bread without paying, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not burden any of you. It was not because we have not that right, but to give you in our conduct an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: If any one will not work, let him not eat.
The key lesson from all of this is that we should place our trust in God. We should work diligently for our daily bread, but at the same time not be anxious, knowing that our God is generous and wants what is best for us.
