Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. (Phil 4:6)

This was the verse that I read this morning and I thought, how appropriate because I just spent a somewhat restless night due to “worry” or not being able to turn off my mind from thinking, which is often the same thing for me.

So I thought I’d do a little digging deeper and here is some of what I found: 

First off this is a command, not just an exhortation or something optional.  It is to be the habitual practice of a believer to not worry.  Paul is not saying that there are not reasons to worry, but he is saying that believers are to avoid this subtle and debilitating sin - because worry is a sin.  Nor does this mean we are to look at life through rose-colored glasses, that we are not to face reality? No. Paul says that we are to worry about nothing because we are to pray about everything. 

Worry is undue care and is an intrusion into God's arena. It makes us the father of the household instead of being a child. (D Guzik)

Vine adds that anxiety harasses the soul; it enfeebles, irritates, ruffles the temper, is a sign of mistrust and of failing obedience, and distracts the mind from communion with God.

From the spiritual point of view, worry is wrong thinking (the mind) and wrong feeling (the heart) about circumstances, people, and things. Worry is the greatest thief of joy. It is not enough for us, however, to tell ourselves to “quit worrying” because that will never capture the thief. Worry is an “inside job,” and it takes more than good intentions to get the victory.

So how do I avoid worry:

The antidote to worry is the secure mind: “And the peace of God... shall keep [garrison, guard like a soldier] your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7). When you have the secure mind, the peace of God guards you (Phil. 4:7) and the God of peace guides you (Phil. 4:9). With that kind of protection—why worry? (Wiersbe, W)

Barnes adds that Paul "does not mean that we are to exercise no care about worldly matters - no care to preserve our property, or to provide for our families (1Ti 5:8); but that there is to be such confidence in God as to free the mind from anxiety, and such a sense of dependence on him as to keep it calm.

Cast (in Hebrew = a command) your burden upon the LORD (releasing the weight of if) and He will sustain you. He will never allow the righteous to be shaken. (Ps 55:22)

I found the following by W Wiersbe writing on Psalm 55:22  to be helpful

This promise tells us that Christians do have burdens. David is not talking about concern for others, although it's good to bear one another's burdens. Instead, he means the burdens that the Lord allows each one of us to bear. One translation reads, "Cast what he has given thee upon the Lord." Burdens are not accidents but appointments. The burdens you have in your life today are what God has ordained for you--unless they are the result of your own rebellious sin against Him. Burdens help us grow; they help us exercise the muscles of our faith. They teach us how to trust God and live a day at a time. This promise also tells us that we can cast these burdens on the Lord. Peter said, "Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you" (notes 1 Peter 5:7). The Lord gives us the burden, and then He says,

"Now give that burden back to Me. But don't stop there; give Me yourself as well."

If we try to give Him our burdens without giving Him ourselves, He really can't help us. It's like stepping onto an elevator with many heavy packages and failing to put them down on the floor until you reach your destination. Let the elevator carry both you and your packages. Notice that the verse doesn't say He'll keep you from problems all the time. He's going to use problems to build your character. But he'll make sure the righteous will not be moved. Cast your burden on the Lord. Let Him sustain you today. Giving your burden to God is an act of faith. But giving yourself to Him and letting Him use that burden to help you grow is taking an extra step of faith. He will invest that burden in building your character. Give your burdens to the Lord today.

To finish well

My salvation is all about His grace.  My growing in faith is also all about His grace, in that He provides the opportunities for me to benefit from.  In the end, however, there is a part that I must play; decisions I must put into action that will determine my rewards, my capacity for joy.  All will be full – but some will be fuller than others because of things done in this life or more to the point because of the motives of our hearts.  Was it for His glory or our own?  Time will tell.  And so we push on to finish the race He has set before us.  I pray I may finish well.

morning musings

God is the one I want to please which means doing what He says and as He says it.  I can’t pick and choose what to obey and what not to obey.  When I ask for wisdom or a direction and He answers then I must obey – no excuses!  I cannot judge others when I too fall short of His glory.  Love is the motivation, for God, for others and lastly for myself.  It’s easy to write these words but quite another thing to put them into action which is why I so desperately need not just His assistance but His very existence in my life.  Like a spiral going up, each time I call out to Him because of some transgression, He and I get just a little closer.  He knows I am but dust and it is His Spirit in me that gives me life, hope, joy and peace.

A new beginning

I started a new book today, Big God by Britt Merrick.  He wrote this book during a time when his 5 year old daughter was struggling with cancer.  She went into remission but the cancer came back and eventually took her life.  I watched this family, from a far, as they went through this time in the valley of the shadow of death and found my faith strengthen by their living testimonies.  I hope to share little tid-bits along the way. . . and so we begin.

“I have hidden Your Word in my heart”.  In difficult times, when we have read our Bibles, we can fall back on His truth, His promises and what we know about His character.  Verses like Phil 4:6-9 can shape and protect our hearts and minds and prevent us from going to the dark places.  We need to intentionally choose to trust in His Word.  It is living, active, inerrant, infallible, authoritative and true.  As A W Tozer once said “We can’t expect those without faith to understand the power of the Word because it is through faith that the Word is revealed”.   The Bible tells us about Jesus, and reveals the character of God so that we can know that He is good and faithful.  Therefore, Let the Word of Christ dwell richly in you.

The starfish story

As I started my quiet time this morning I thought about how easily I am distracted (by the cares of life and puppy dogs wanting in and wanting out) and my prayer was that I would keep my focus on Jesus.

                                                            

In my reading I was impressed by a line – that the same God who cares for everyone without exception, loves each individual with an exceptional love.

Because we are the recipients of this exceptional love, it frees us to love others.  The author makes a distinction between actions done in love and activism.  Where an activist may want to heal, restore, redeem or re-create, those acting out of love point through their actions to the healing, restoring, redeeming and re-creating presence of God.

As I mused on this I thought of the starfish story.  Sometimes we see all these starfish, the distractions and cares of life that seem so overwhelming that we miss that one we are to minister too, that one whose life we can touch with a word of healing or a smile of affirmation.  Nothing we do out of love for Him will ever go unnoticed.  It’s not our responsibility to clear the beach, just be there for the one (or ones) He has placed in our life.

How cool is that!!!

At our group last night, a couple of the women are doing the Beth Moore study on 1 Thessalonians.  We were taking about prayer and one them mentioned Beth saying that each morning our Father is just waiting for us to get up and talk with Him.  It reminded me of something I had read recently by Tozer  “Did you ever stop to think that God is going to be as pleased to have you with Him in Heaven as you are to be there?” 

The idea of Him really desiring and delighting in us - in me - and being in relationship with Him, is beyond explanation or my limited understanding.

This morning as I woke up I thought of how complete and whole God is.  He needs nothing.  He is the Great I am, the Three in One, the beginning and the end, an unbroken fellowship of unity and communion.  And still He desires to be in relationship with us, so much so that He has provided the way, the only way, for that to become a reality. Jesus is the way.  The way of returning into the completeness, the wholeness and holiness of God, where we too can experience that unbroken fellowship and communion with the lover, the desirer of our souls.  How cool is that!!!

The LORD, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.  Zeph 3:17

A thought and a prayer.

Father, it’s hard to see the bread of life when your stomach is empty  - but that is my heart’s desire.

To cultivate an appetite for Jesus.  Out into the deep, where my feet don’t touch, not to struggle but to float.  Beyond the gift to the Giver.  As we seek Him, He reveals Himself to us through His Spirit.  Not demanding but asking in faith, knowing He is good and can be trusted.