TODAY'S WORRIES AND SUBSEQUENT LESSONS

Jeremiah 31:33-34,

“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,’ declares the LORD. ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,’ declares the LORD. ‘For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.’

I am grateful today that Jesus came and implemented that new covenant. I am grateful that God puts His law inside our minds rather than us having to write them on scrolls and bind them on our wrists, and that He writes it on our hearts rather than us having to write them on our doorways. It is still good to memorize Scripture, but God is more personal with us now and has chosen to be our God and chosen us to be His people, and has chosen to forgive us and allow us to know Him.

A few verses later, in verse 37,

“This is what the LORD says: ‘Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done,’ declares the LORD.”

I am also grateful that there is nothing we can do to hinder our God from loving us and chasing after us. No matter what we have done, if we feel God has abandoned us, we can ask, “Have the heavens been measured? Have the foundations of the earth been searched? No. Okay, then, God must still be with me through all my flounderings and failures!”

I am also grateful that God spends a lot of time in the Bible addressing people who worry a lot. For me, I worry a lot but I cover it up by saying I am a “planner.” Being a planner is good to an extent, except when I say I am a planner but mean I am an over-analytical worrier who tries to imagine life and prepare for every possible outcome at various stages in order to create an illusion of control over my life. Major waste of time!

Lately, I worry about what will happen when my husband comes back from the deployment he hasn’t left for yet. I worry about PhD programs, whether we’ll be ready to move right when he gets home and if not how to finance til then, where we will live, and how to financially juggle having kids sometime during that time (hopefully). I want to stay home with the kids once we have them - or at least work only once a week or so. But with husband in school, I am not sure what that will look like. Of course, I”m not pregnant and he hasn’t even applied to schools yet. And maybe by then he’ll decide to work for a couple more years while in the Guard before going to PhD…though I kinda hope he jumps into PhD, since now I am prepared for it. I am sure whatever happens I could prepare myself for, and God will provide for, but are you seeing how my mind goes? And that’s not even half of it!

Matthew 6:25-27 and 32-34 are critical reminders today.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”

32-34, “For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

I pray that God will lead us to the right school, at the right time, with the right job opportunities for us. I have plenty to work on trusting God with already without adding to it potential worries for the next 10 years of my life!

Proverbs 3:5,

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”