February 10, 2023Thank you to everyone who has reached out to me in the past week, as I await further medical tests. In the list of prayer items in our church, there are many who have health concerns and we can encourage one another in prayer.
In “A Small Book for the Anxious Heart” Edward T. Welch writes: “Worries can leave you spiritually vulnerable. Jesus warns us about this in His story of a sower and seeds.
A sower scattered his seeds, and the seeds fell on different types of soils. One soil was a bit thorny. ‘The cares of the world’ are your worries. These are not potent enough to drag you away from Jesus, but they can leave you stagnant and unfruitful. Notice how our worries tend to imagine a future without God in it. Without God we have to prepare for those future threats on our own. Life gradually gets smaller. Our mission to trust Jesus and love other people gets temporarily lost amid our future preparations.”
How can we ensure that anxiety does not overpower us? Welch observes: “The threats of life leave two options. We can either turn in on ourselves, be paralyzed by them, have minds racing with the worst scenarios, or we can simply cry out to the Lord.
When I am afraid, I put my trust in You. Psalm 56:3
Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before Him. Psalm 62:8
The most basic version of this trust, when spoken to the Lord, is ‘Help me.’ ‘Jesus, help.’ ‘Father, help.’ ‘Spirit, help.’ ‘My mind is reeling. I feel like I can hardly function.’ Simply speak this to the One who listens and speaks to you.”
By God’s grace, we can rest in the promises of His Word and live victoriously over anxiety and sin.
Scripture for the weekend: “When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches.” Psalm 63:6 (NKJV)
Thought for the weekend: “A person who has the habit of hope also has the habit of remembering. Hope needs memories the way a writer needs notes. This is partly because hope depends so much on imagination. Our images of the future are sweepings from our remembrances of things past. If we expect to keep hope alive, we need to keep memory alive. Happy memories of good things we hoped for that were fulfilled, and grateful memories of bad things we survived.” – Lewis B. Smedes (from “Keeping Hope Alive” quoted in “The Jeremiah Study Bible”)