In a devotional I was reading this morning, and it’s funny when God does this because His time is always perfect, it talks about the things that worry you and the things that keep you up at night are perhaps the things you aren’t trusting God with. At least not completely.
Whether that be finances, your job, your kids, your marriage, or even your friendships that might be falling apart or at least be a little strained, you’re trying to handle them under your own strength.
We were never meant to handle things on our own. I talked about this yesterday in the blog that I wrote, God created Adam AND Eve so they could help each other, be there for each other, walk through life together.
God designed us to walk through life every day but He never designed us to do it alone. We don’t ask for help because we have too much pride. We don’t want to ask for help because we think we’re bothering people, we have too much pride to say, “I can’t do this alone, I need help.”
“Do not be anxious about anything. Instead, in every situation, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, tell your requests to God. And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Phillipians 4:6-7)”
In the still of the night as you’re going to bed, on your commute to or from work, as you’re sitting at the kitchen table and there’s finally silence around you after the kids have gone to bed (I’ve been in this moment, I know how good that silence is), what are you afraid or what is taken over your thoughts that makes you fear whatever you’re going through?
There are things in my life, especially with what my future holds, that I don’t bring to God because I think I’m bothering him with it. It’s my pride that gets in the way and keeps me from bringing ALL of my cares, worries, anxious thoughts, fears to God to be able to deal with them.
God is a Father who wants to be their for His children, He wants them to know that He is there to walk through anything with us no matter what that is. He also knows what our future holds so any time we get afraid of it or anxious about it He wants us to come to Him with our worries so he can CALM THEM.
He knows what our future holds and He knows how the story ends. Even David, in scripture, asked God, “know my anxious thoughts (Psalm 139:23).” David was essentially handing the keys to himself back to God and saying, “God, search me, I’m an open book, what are my anxious thoughts, what are my fears, what am I so afraid of?”
So, as you’re going through the day today, give that same time to God and let Him help you with whatever you’re going through. Make today be the day to say, “God, it’s you and me, I need help and I need you to help me with these anxious and fear based thoughts that keep me awake at night or they keep me from focusing on the things that I need to really be focused on.”
How would you like to be able to focus again, sleep better at night, or go through every day feeling a little lighter each day because God is lifting that burden off of you or giving you the answers you’re looking for to help you realize the things you’re struggling with. He may not give you the answers to the questions but He’s going to lead you to the answers by revealing certain things that are going on until you reach that “AH HA” moment.
God isn’t there to judge you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He’s not only there to just be a judge, jury, and executioner of the things you’re doing wrong. A dad might be someone who is going to discipline you but, as us dads know, we do that to put you back on the right track. You’re acting out or you’re doing things that are going to make things harder on you as you walk out every day, I’m disciplining you because you need to be checked.
God is checking us to put us on the right path every day but the thoughts that you’re having you have to be able to take hold of, to take captive of, and hand them over to God. We need to be able to open our hearts and say, “God I can’t do this on my own. Here are the keys to my heart again, search me and find those thoughts that I need to get rid of so I can feel better and sleep better and focus better.”
Like I say in just about every post that I do, I’m not talking AT you. I’m not trying to tell you that I don’t struggle with these same thoughts because I do, every day. In fact, there are things I know I’m anxious about and I don’t bring it to God because it seems so small that I should be able to deal with it on my own. Except God reminds me that nothing is too small to bring to Him, nothing is too small for Him to help me and remind me how to get to the answers.
Find your prayer time to get those thoughts and hold them captive. Find time to spend with God and have Him search you to lead you to the answers as to why things are happening the way they are. What’s going on in your life that you need to change? Who are the people that you may need to spend more, or less, time with? Who are those people who encourage you and lift you up but you might take those kind of words for granted for reasons you can’t understand?
It’s time we change the narrative and it’s time we take back what God rightfully gave us. It’s time to kill our pride and ask for help. We were never meant to do life by ourselves, we were always meant to have those people right there to help us when we needed it.
It might be Monday, but this is the Monday where everything changes.
Go get it!
Todd Kaufmann 