Thursday, May 15, 2014

Day of Praise

Th, 05/15/14, Easter Day #26, "Day of Praise"

Matthew 10:30 - "[Jesus said,] 'But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.'"

So there's this wonderful woman in our church, who babysits her extremely cute, little, straight-and-blond-haired toddler. A couple days ago, she brought him into our class with a new, 3-wheeled, jogging stroller that her son and his wife had recently purchased. Everything was great until it was time to go home. She and I could not figure out, for the proverbial life of us, how to collapse the stroller so we could get it back in her car. We struggled and pushed every one of the 47 million plastic buttons on that thing for at least a half hour and probably longer. We were laughing. Well, a little. And finally, out of desperation, with my whole heart I turned to Jesus and calmly (not!) said, "Come on, Jesus! Please help us out here!" And wouldn't you know that immediately she pushed something that made the crazy thing collapse and fit right into her car?

This is what Jesus is talking about in today's Bible verse. He knows everything in our lives, down to the last hair on our head, and wants to bless each one of those teenie things to huge things that are going on. The question is, "Do we believe Him?" And will we turn everything over to Him? And I mean everything!!! Down to the last hair! And then will we watch to see how he shows his care?

Yesterday, I was pleasantly shocked at how many of you replied to me and committed to the suggested practices of daily quiet times, praying scripture, and journaling. One woman gave this testimony. She said that she'd been back and forth about asking to meet with me about trying to find God's will. She said she'd had a particularly hard decision to make that'd been weighing her down the last couple weeks, and she'd never felt comfortable knowing what God was telling her to do.

She said when she got yesterday's Day of Praise, suggesting quiet times, praying scripture, and journaling, it spoke directly to her. So she prayed and read the Bible and journaled. She said she felt like she'd heard more from God in those 30 minutes than she had since the issue came up. And she excitedly committed to a new morning ritual! (And had found a use for all the empty journals she seemed to have collected over the years).

She went on to say, "While there was a direct answer today to my immediate need, my readings reminded me that God is sovereign and to trust Him (which is actually a better answer than what I was looking for). I feel positively challenged to a personal relationship with Christ. I too often forget He's there to talk to and that His word is the best place to find His response. Lesson learned...again. :-)"

All this woman did was discover again that when Jesus says that he knows every hair on our head, then he means it!

Dear Friends, God cares about every single little aspect of your life. Make it easier on yourself, and give everything in your life to the Lord. Turn it over to Him in prayer. Even better, write down your prayers in your journal, or start a prayer box so that you can go back and see all the ways that God has already addressed most, if not all, of the things that you entrusted to His care.

Try it! As always, what do you have to lose, except a little (or a lot of?) stress and worry from your day?

God cares!

Praise God!


Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson

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