“But I don’t know what tomorrow holds
But I know who holds tomorrow
So I don’t have to fear
God I know you can”
Shoutout to PJ Morton and Smokie Norful.
I was on the way home from the basketball court, and I was thinking about what I was going to do for the rest of the day. The rest of the week. Slowly, I was overwhelmed. I felt like there was so much to do, and not enough time. I felt like there was so much happening, and so much which could still happen. If anything extra came up, I wouldn’t know how to deal with it.
And then I heard those lyrics.
“I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but I know who who holds tomorrow.”
See I could end this here.
It doesn’t matter what tomorrow has planned for me. I know who planned tomorrow.
I may not know what is going to happen. But I know who’s going to make it happen.
Why should I worry?
But I do.
I can go shout:
“Jeremiah 29:11, for I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
But then find myself in my room worrying about whether I’ll be able to get all my work done.
I can go open up the Bible to Matthew 6 and read, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
But I’ll ask myself whether it’ll be tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that, that I hear back.
The knowledge is not being translated. The faith is not apparent.
God instructs us not to worry. For us to worry is disobedience.
It is a sin.
But, worrying is only natural right?
No.
See, we should be concerned. We should care about life. But we should not worry.
Ray Pritchard writes that
Worry is excessive concern over the affairs of life. The key obviously is the word “excessive.” Worry happens when you are so concerned about the problems of life that you can think of nothing else. It is an all-consuming feeling of uncertainty and fear. And it is a sin. Worry is a sin for two reasons: First, because it displaces God in your life. When you commit the sin of worry, you are living as though God did not exist. And you are living as though you alone can solve your problems. Second, because it distracts you from the things that really matter in life. As long as you are worrying, you can’t do anything else. You are strangled by worry.
Okay.
But this goes back to what was said earlier.
We should have some care and concern about life, but we should not be worried about it.
So what we really need to know is how to tell when the legitimate concerns of life have become sinful worries?
Pritchard gives us some practical guidelines:
You are probably well into worry…
- When the thing you are concerned about is the first thing you think about in the morning and the last thing you think about at night.
- When you find yourself thinking about it during every spare moment.
- When you find yourself bringing it up in every conversation you have.
Be careful…
This isn’t to say that, if you do not do these 3 things, then you’re definitely not worrying about it. Sometimes, we refuse to think or address things because we are so worried about them. Sometimes the thought of something that we are worried about can make us anxious, to the point where we’d rather not address the situation at all.
So…
How do we escape this?
Let’s be real.
There are legitimate dangers all around us. There are problems. We often know less than we need to. How do we not worry about those blanks? Those question marks. Those areas where we have no idea what’s going on.
Well, here’s some advice:
“Don’t be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God and the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
Someone is looking after us.
There’s this song.
All in his plan. Once again by PJ Morton (I clearly like his music).
Can I be honest?
Sometimes I don’t understand
Why do you let me fall
When the world is in your hands?
You could stop it all if you wanted to
But you don’t, you just let me go through
But I know you never let it kill me
Only make me strong
It’s okay for us to have thoughts. We are human. We are going to question things. But we can’t let these thoughts linger.
If you’re going to ask God “Why?,” at least take the time to listen to the answer.
We often ask, and never listen.
We carry on with whatever we were doing before.
But if we take the time, to just pause, and really reflect on things, we’ll likely recognise that it is all in His plan.
The Bible says “He careth for you.”
Jesus, our Lord, says: “Your Father knows what you have need of before you ask Him.” And Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled.”
The Bible pictures God as a very careful, tender-hearted Father, who actively spends time dealing with the troubles of His people. He looks after them, goes ahead of them, cares for them, and guides them all the way through.
Let’s wrap this up.
Worry often starts in the heart and the mind.
And so, our solution often requires us to question where our heart and mind is.
Where does our heart lie?
Who do we put our trust in?
Do we believe in who God is, or do we only believe in His existence?
It’s harder to compose yourself once you start worrying.
But what if we could trust God beforehand.
What if we could just let God have His way?
As soon as I stop worrying
Worrying how the story ends
When I let go and I let God
Let God have his way
That’s when things starts happening
When I stop looking at back then
When I let go oh, and I let God
Let God have his way
Just one more thing…
A Story:
A woman kept a box in her kitchen that she called her “Worry Box.” Every time something arose that troubled her, she would write it down on a piece of paper and place it in that box. She resolved that she would give these problems no thought as long as they were in the box. Every so often she would open it, take out the slips of paper, and review the concerns written on them.
Following this procedure enabled the woman to put troubles out of her mind completely. She knew that they could be dealt with later. Then, because she had not been drained by anxiety over her difficulties she was in a relaxed frame of mind and better able to find solutions to her problems.
Many times, however, she discovered to her delight that most of the troubles she had been worried about no longer existed.
Writing your worries on paper and putting them in a box may be helpful, but let’s really think about it.
How much better to place them in the hands of God.
Today. Why don’t you try letting go.
Take your hands off of it.
And let God be God!
My Sunday Skl 