Over the last 24 hours, I’ve come across three very different devotions dealing with worrying. Had I received the first one when it was sent on Friday, I might have read it and not given much thought to it, but it somehow had gotten stuck in my work spam folder which meant I didn’t see it until Monday morning, after I had just read another devotion on worrying. These also came after a conversation with a friend who shared that he wasn’t concerned about a particular situation because he knew that God was in control and all he needed to do was to trust God for the outcome in His timing. Wow! I’m a natural worrier, so letting go of all control is not something I’ve done before, but I would love to get to that place of complete trust.
Again, I wouldn’t have thought too much about those devotions, except I’m unable to sleep and decide to read an easy to read devotion, and that too had to do with being worried. Hmmm. Now I’m starting to examine my life to see if there are areas where I am worried about, trying to convince myself that I’m not worried, but deep down haven’t quite handed it over to God. I’m learning that there are no coincidence in the things of God that I encounter, and for me to have read three devotions on worrying within the last twenty four hours, means there is something that I need to look into.
One of the surest ways to get rid of worry is by prayer. I think of just last night as I was looking for a little book I own with encouraging passages and not being able to find it in any of the usual places, I offered up a prayer and found it within a matter of one minute in a bag of stuff that had been set aside. I know there’s no way I would have been able to find it on my own. I guess it also shouldn’t surprise either you or me that as my daughter was fiddling with the book marker and I opened it to see where it was marked to, it was marked on the section of ‘prayer’. As I’m teaching my daughter about prayer, I decided that I should not just read it to myself, but I should share some of what the Bible says about prayer with her. As I read through about half of them and it was late, I told her we needed to go to bed, but she insisted that she wanted to hear more, so I read a few more.
Now that I’m up, when I would rather be sleeping, I think God is trying to tell me there are things in my life that are causing me to be anxious, without me even being aware of the specific circumstances. I know that God wants me to bring them all to Him. He wants to unburden my mind.
I’d like to share two of the scriptures that I read to my daughter with you, and are my favorites: ‘It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear.’ Isaiah 65:24 NKJV and ‘Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.’ Jeremiah 29:12-13 NKJV
What are you worrying about? God wants you to bring all your cares and concerns to Him and for you to leave them in His capable hands.
Dear Heavenly Father, please reveal the things that we are worried about. The things that we may have thought that we handed over to you some time ago, only to have picked them back up and not even being aware that we are back to carrying the weight of our worlds on our own shoulders, when you have promised that all we have to do is to cast our cares on you.