Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” -James 4:13-15
Most times it feels like I’m just standing in a room with my hands at my sides while God tosses random items in a suitcase for me. And as he takes some things from my shelves and throws them in, still others are picked up and thrown directly in the garbage as he says, “You gonna need this" and "You’ve never needed this.” All while I politely stare in dazed amusement wondering, “Where are we going?”
But it’s become a large part of my life with Christ to simply trust in Him to guide me. And that means learning not to worry about my future.
And it’s easy to worry isn’t it? In fact in a twisted way it’s almost fulfilling to be immersed in our worries. We’ve simply allowed ourselves to be shaped into worrisome people. All too easily letting our fears guide us more than our hopes.
Ah, the awesome power of the “What If’s.”- What if I lose my job? What if my spouse leaves me? What if I get sick? What if the kids get sick? What if our house burns down? It really can be paralyzing. So we bubble wrap our dreams in a sort of padded room of plans for our future. We plan, plan, plan as though we're tightening the straps on a straight jacket to be sure we've taken as few risks as possible.
We’ll stay at our unhappy, dead end jobs for decades just to ride out our 401K’s instead of going back to school or starting a new career. We’ll turn down trips to new places in lew of staying home for our annual vacation, trimming our hedges and cleaning gutters. We buy insurance for everything we own (even our own lives). And some who can afford it might even retain lawyers on the side just to watch over it all in case there’s something we might’ve missed planning for.
And I’m not against planning but maybe we ought to stop and ask ourselves, what are our motives? Are we planning with a sense of hope or are we planning out of fear? Because as I understand it God has taught us not to focus so much on the ‘what if’s’ of tomorrow but instead to focus on our faith in Him right here, right now.
But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! -Luke 12:28
Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. -Matthew 6:34
And so at least in my life, living out this command has been challenging because it goes against my own normal, worrisome, social flow. So I’ve made it a point to pray regularly about it, asking for God to lead me.
And when I pray I like asking God to lead me with the easiest possible signs- “Lord, please lead me through opportunities. Lord, please lead me through mentoring. And Lord, please lead me by putting your own will on my heart.”
Then I can rest in God while comfortably soaking in new opportunities along with any trusted advice and by following my heart.
So with all that in mind I've included this next sermon entitled Living in the Gap. It was taught at the Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas by Pastor Afshin Ziafat.
In this sermon Afshin uses the covenant by God with Abram in Genesis 15 to teach us that we as Christians tend to focus on the gifts of God (fulfillment of the covenant) more than God himself.
Here’s how he puts it:
1. We need to recognize what the true reward is-The Lord came to Abram saying, "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward” -Genesis 15:1
2. We need to take our eyes off whatever’s in God’s hands and put our eyes back on Him. (Quit worshiping what God gives you, worship Him.)
So using my little analogy from the beginning- Is it right for me to be asking the Lord, “Where are we going?” Or should I simply be strengthened in knowing wherever I am He is with me.
Give it a listen then ask your own self, “What am I expecting out of this relationship with God?”
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