Worrying

Corrie ten Boom wrote the following in her "Clippings from my Notebook". A journal she kept.
Corrie and her sister were imprisoned by the Nazi's for hiding Jewish people from the inevitable slaughter in World War 11.

"Worrying is carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength - carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of ts strength."

Pretty simple but powerful words especially when put into the light of today's world with everything going haywire and topsy turvy.

Jesus, too, was pretty emphatic when He talked about WORRY in the Sermon on the Mount recorded for us in Matthew 6: 28-34. In our Australian Bible study on twitter on a Wednesday night we have been slowly going through the whole of Jesus' teaching on these passages and the whole 'sermon on the mount' is just so relevant to today.

What is worry anyway? Well before we go into that just lets say that worry is an exercise in futility - it achieves nothing, zero, nada! Worry refers to the negatives in life - it is images of what 'could be' and dwells on the emotions like nothing else can. Worry drives people to suicide, marriage breakups and the ruination of family and friends.

As we have progressed through our Aussie study we have looked at what Jesus actually says about worry and how he warns us of the sheer futility of it.

Jesus says in Mathew 6:25 that worry is wrong - He tells us not to worry about things here on earth - and not to be worry about our life and how we will survive not to worry about our clothes or our food because He has promised to meet our basic material needs.

That's fine I hear you say but you have no idea what we are going through at the moment or what lies ahead of any of us. I truly appreciate what you are saying and just let me add this. Not so long when our Granddaughter was born we noticed she had a very slight turn in her eye - as it turned out the slight turn in her eye was far more serious than any of us first thought. Since then we have discovered that she is almost blind in that eye and has numerous operations to remove tumours growing behind her eye and down through the nasal passage.

Were we worried?  Through this time we threw ourselves into the arms of our lord - and just let me say this - WORRY DOESN'T MEAN NOT TO BE CONCERNED! Of course we were concerned and we continue to be concerned as the outcome is certainly not cut and dried and it won't be for many many years to come.

But does worry help at all in a situation like this? - No definitely not - all the worry we do doesn't help one iota in the outcome of such uncertainty. There is a difference in concern and worry.

Concern drives us to prayer, and helping as much as we can - thinking outside of the box and being creative in ways to help carry the burdens - Worry on the other hand drives us to hand-wringing and heart wrenching - isolation and despair with no possible good outcome. If we let worry run it's course it will cause anxiety and eventually depression.

Worry is involved solely in the ME while concern is involved in the WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP?

Worry is actually a sin - it's because we have stopped focusing on God as ruler of our lives and throned ourselves there instead - We have become the MOST important person. - Worry is all about ME.

Worry has no end - its is a continuum - it is everlasting - we can't actually analyse worry - there is no answer - no final end - its like a big fat blanket thrown over our heads so that we can't escape  - so different to concern.

So here is the thing - if you are a worrier.  Each day is a gift, a real gift from God. In Matthew 6 Jesus says
1) Don't worry about tomorrow because tomorrow will take care of itself.
2) Each day has enough trouble of it's own.
Pretty astounding words really.

If we worry and stew about tomorrow - where will it end? We have endless tomorrows - Jesus is saying here each day brings it's own set of crisis and if we start to think about tomorrow's crisis and the next day and the next day it will only add burden after burden to today.

Take each day as real gift from God and care for today's problems today - care about tomorrow's problems then not now. Leave tomorrow where it is - Tomorrow! God has promised to see us through and he will.

Sure, there are going to be horrible things happen: I remember so well when SueAnn was diagnosed with cancer - would have been so easy to have thrown in the towel - curl up in foetal position and 'will' the world away - becoming depressed and isolated in our own little world of sorrow. Would all the worrying in the world have helped us through this crisis? Definitely NO!

Of course we were concerned and we fell to our knees amid tears and heartbreak - but not worry! Concern and REAL concern was our cry - regardless of the outcome we had to pass through it and not make it a lifestyle.

So where are you on the 'worry scale'? Don't let worry define your life - God and he alone gives you the strength you need when you need it. He will give us all the strength we need to face each day - Live as God ordained each day - one after the other. let's not bound ahead, who knows what is just around the corner.

Denying what is Plainly Evident

Going through our bookshelves this week I came across the Family Bible and once again sat intrigued by the history of it all - the underlined passages by people long gone the little notes in the margins as 'prompts' for us to consider, grow and learn.

I was amazed as I turned the fragile pages just how loved this old weather-worn book has been over all these years. As my tears spilled onto the old pages I was taken back again to my childhood and the lessons learned from my Mum who has since gone to meet Her Lord on the 14th June, 2000.

She was an amazing and wonderful lady - full to the brim with grace, love and mercy - Her undying love for Jesus was and will continue to be a signpost and a lighthouse hopefully to my family and certainly to both Sue and me.

As I continued to turn the frail yet poignant pages to my surprise out fell two sheets of yellowing pages - one a poem written by my Dad in his old age - His spidery and shaky hand writing worsened by a series of strokes yet still able to delineate his words to get the full impact of what he was trying to say.

He had written a poem to his three Daughters-In-law and drew a comparison between them and Ruth of Old testament fame - His words were so moving and so so true. I was gobsmacked by their simplicity, their truthfulness and their sheer honesty.

The other sheet was written by my Mum - and as I sat there - her words rang so true to me that I could barely speak - Her tenacity in never letting go of God, no matter what, always made me tremble - her faith never wavered and she always spoke the truth. Never worrying what people would say or think.

Here is what she wrote just before her death and speaks volumes of the way she saw her Lord and how she felt about creation bursting all around her.

She entitles it from Psalm 14 verse 1

The fool has said in his heart there is no God! 

By Hilda May Mewett.

"All space is thronged with the witnesses that speak His holy name - All beauty in it's myriad forms - the stars and worlds that flame - that stream in ordered courses through illimitable space - the ant, the bee, the butterfly, the fine spun spangled face of spring, the harvest time; the miracle of birth; the instinct of the birds assembling ready to migrate.

How should they know the time, the place - the date?

Blind worms that work their purposes with tireless energy; the strength of roots - the surge of sap - and life beneath the sea!

And in the midst of all these things; a little foolish man stands up and cries "there is no God!"

What matter? For the plan of life goes on, in spite of fools - the seasons come and go - the trees put forth their leaves in spring - birds sing and flowers grow" 

In just these few paragraphs my Mum captured something that has a profound truth that nobody can deny - the truth that only God can create - only He could knit everything together in such a complex, amazing and incomparable way.

My Mum's thoughts resonated deeply within me - Why, the very existence of the universe screams to us that there MUST be a Creator God. The very design of the animals and birds, insects and mankind proves beyond any measure that the Creator God - just has to be a 'designer' God as well!

What does amaze me more and more as I get older is that this very God is a relational God - A God who wants to have a REAL and PERSONAL relationship with you and me - astounding and true!

Psalm 14: 1 points out dramatically that a person who denies the very existence of God is a fool - a very harsh word indeed but then what else would you call someone who goes out of their way to deny what is so very obvious from the very depths of the deep to the tiniest tiniest microbe, all there to prove that God is real and alive.

When you let your mind just stop and try to capture the enormity of it all is the very picture Hilda May was trying desperately to capture in her pointed words and practical solutions.  To believe in this amazing and real God of hers who had obviously changed her life so dramatically.

In Psalms 19:1 it says "The very heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork"

In Romans 1 Paul bursts forth with " For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made - SO THEY HAVE NO EXCUSE!"

God's existence is all around us screaming out to us that the God of the universe is our God too.

My Mum's amazing testimony about the very existence of God came home to me once again that our God, the Creator God is alive and still wanting to create! He wants to create a new life for you and me - a life filled with His spirit - A life of deep-down peace and joy - of forgiveness for others no matter what they have done to you or said about you.

Turn to Jesus today - Truly God and truly man - Accept His offer of forgiveness and start to live the life that He planned out for you originally.

My Mum's faith was amazing - so simple yet so true - The very same faith we can have by turning to Jesus today.

A new look at STRUGGLES

I hate struggling - I just wish life would go along so smoothly and that everything just fell into line like it should and there was no real problems to face - no one being hurt - no family breakups - no money worries - no job losses.

Often it seems to me that we lurch from one crisis to another in this world and we no sooner solve or seemingly solve one problem that another one looms on the horizon only to knock us down once again - so I hate struggles.

I hate it when my children and grandchildren are heartbroken over something that overwhelms them - I hate that we can't solve all the problems that come our way and I hate that I can't make our problems disappear entirely for everyone.

Struggles!! They overwhelm us so often that we can so easily give up the struggle. - We feel our life is just not worth carrying on, that our life really is just worthless

Often struggles are due to people. People who oppose our ideas. People who put us down, who dislike what we stand for and try all sorts of different ways to control or manipulate us.

Our very own negative emotions can dictate to us how we struggle with life and what the outcome can be in our walk here on earth.

If we give into these negative emotions and let them consume us and tell us that we are indeed worthless then we will eventually believe them and start to react accordingly. We give up on our struggles and let them destroy our families and our well being

In Philippians 1 Paul tells of his struggles and says that we mustn't be worried or afraid of any opponents that cause us to struggle because in the end it is they who will be destroyed not us.

It's a pretty comforting chapter really because it doesn't matter who or what opposes you and causes you to struggle it is actually a sign to them that they will be destroyed BUT you will be saved.

WOW!! So we shouldn't be intimidated by our struggles, or by those people or things that cause our struggles. Why? because it is a very BIG sign that you will indeed be saved through your very struggles.

Satan tries so hard to bring us down though our struggles. Our struggles which we take as so very hard and are eventually going to destroy us is actually a good thing because through them we know for sure that we will be delivered.

The struggles we thought were going to destroy us will eventually deliver us. If Satan was going to destroy us through our struggles he would have succeeded by now BUT NO! we are still here. Yes we may be struggling and Yes we may be wondering and doubting but Satan has no control over us not even through our struggles.

We need to move forward with God through our struggles no matter what they are.  Remembering that our struggles are sign that we are indeed fighting against a real power, an evil power in this world and through our struggles we gain our fitness to move forward with Jesus.

Through our struggles God will lead us to a greater level of faith and through that faith to an amazing hope a hope that brings us to the very feet of Jesus to claim victory over of the very struggles that are pulling us down at this moment.

So where are you with your struggles? Are they pulling you down and ready to destroy you. Or are you rejoicing in your struggles realising that they are a sure sign that you are fighting the good fight, prepared and ready for the battle?

God is preparing a great victory for us if we can fight to the end. The enemy is defeated! If he hadn't been then we would surely have fallen by this time but NO we are still here fighting on in the name of the one who saved us.

Let's take heart in our struggles and recognise them for what they are,  a sign that we are indeed in the great battle of the King.