Our nation and world are experiencing economic hardship not seen for decades. Unemployment is rising. Foreclosures are accelerating. Banks are closing. Savings are disappearing.

Each week there seems to be some new announcement of business failures, layoffs, bankruptcies and bailouts. Comparisons are being made with the Great Depression, when working men and women were forced into bread lines and work programs for survival.

"All you who are thirsty, come to the water," we're told in today's first reading from the prophet Isaiah. "You who have no money, come, receive grain and eat; come, without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk! Why spend your money for what is not bread, your wages for what fails to satisfy?"

God offers us all that we need not just to survive, but to prosper. We know right now more than at any time in recent history what it means to be anxious about meeting our most basic needs for food, shelter and work. God understands, and challenges us, asking why we would look anywhere else, and why we would toil so hard, for survival. "Heed me, and you shall eat well; you shall delight in rich fare."

We celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, an event that is part of the fulfillment of Isaiah's message. In Christ, God gave the world an infinite source of love, compassion and justice. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus unleash the rich resources of heaven for each of us.

There has been a great deal written recently about how our communities are living in fear - fear of the loss of jobs, homes, financial security and more. Yet infinite goodness is available to us. We don't have to work for it. We don't have to earn it. We need only accept the magnificent gift that God offers us.

I often feel that I am spending my time and money and energy for "what is not bread" and for what "fails to satisfy." At the same time, I also worry like many about not having any bread or wages at all. Fear can be crippling, robbing us of happiness as we worry about forces we cannot control. Isaiah tells us we need not do this to ourselves.

The good news is that God is eager to provide all that we need and more. We do not need to be afraid of what the economy can do to us, or of what downsizing, interest rates and stimulus packages can do to us or for us. God is bigger than all of these forces, and promises to take care of us in a real, permanent, lasting way.

We do not need to live in fear when we have an infinite source of hope and happiness in our lives. In Christ God offers us food and water without cost - all that we could ever want. We are promised that if we heed the Lord, we will eat well and delight in rich fare.

Bill Peatman writes from Napa.