When I was a teenager I sometimes challenged my mother when she tried to encourage me to have faith. “Trust God. He will take care of you,” she would tell me. “It’s not that simple, Mom!” I would bark back. “God helps those who help themselves!”

But those words, “God helps those who help themselves” are nowhere to be found in Scripture. Instead, God’s Word teaches us to depend on Him for our daily needs. Jesus tells us, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Matthew 6:26–27).

Everything we enjoy—even the strength to earn a living and “help ourselves”—are gifts from a heavenly Father who loves us and values us beyond our ability to fathom.

As Mom neared the end of her life, Alzheimer’s disease robbed her of her creative mind and memories, but her trust in God remained. She lived in our home for a season, where I was given a “front-row seat” to observe God’s provision for her needs in unexpected ways—ways that helped me see she had been right all along. Instead of worrying, she entrusted herself to the One who promised to take care of her. And He showed Himself faithful.