We often find ourselves stressed out and
overwhelmed when we have a whole list of things we can't control. Maybe you're
having trouble paying the bills and worried you can't afford to buy your
child's birthday gift, a set of tires for your car or pay for the dental work
you really need.
The devil wants you to spend your life
frustrated, anxious, in fear, and out of touch with God. But we have to stop
thinking about what's wrong and start focusing our mind on God, who's in
control.
In
the Fire, but not Burned
You can do everything you need to do
when God is with you—and He's always with you. In the Bible, the book of Daniel
shares the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who, because of their faith
in God, refused to worship a statue of the king of Babylon. Their protest
infuriated the king so much that he ordered them to be thrown into a fiery
furnace that was heated seven times hotter than usual. In fact, the furnace was
so hot it burned up the men who threw them inside of it!
The Bible says that the three men were
thrown into the fire bound, but when the king looked in, he saw four unbound
men walking around in the fire. Who was the fourth man? Who freed them from
bondage and rescued them from death? The One who never leaves us nor forsakes
us.
So here's the point: If you go in the
fiery furnace, Jesus will go in with you.
Giving
Your Questions to God
Anxiety comes when we try to figure
everything out on our own. One of the things we have to learn when we're having
trouble is that we don't need to have the answers all the time. We don't have
to know how, when or why. If we knew all the answers, we wouldn't need to trust
God.
We have to get comfortable not knowing.
That's what faith is.
When you have faith, it's actually just
as good as having what you prayed for because you've released your faith over
it and now you have hope, joy, and peace in knowing that God is in control. (See
Proverbs 3:5.)
The roughest times in your life are when
you need to dig in the deepest. That's what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did
when they stepped into the furnace. But when they came out, they came out free,
with an experience nobody could steal from them.
Walk
This Way
If you feel like you're walking through
a furnace right now, cry out to God. He'll help you through it. Don't let
anxiety overtake you. Don't look at the difficulty in front of you and think,
There's just no way I'm going to get through this. You don't need to see a way
when you know the Way.
No matter what you might be facing right
now or what comes up in the future, I want you to remember two things: God is
with you—and He's in control.
No comments:
Post a Comment