Problems. They either get your heart pumping with adrenaline or bring weighty worry. One thing that I am slow in learning, but growing in just the same, is trusting in the Lord no matter what my outside circumstances - or pending deadlines - look like. God is always in control, and He has never let me down. When real life happens, and it does quite frequently at my house, my go-to reaction oftentimes is fear and worry. Immediately I wonder how we will pay for this, or how this interpersonal relationship will be restored, or how I'm going to break it to my kids that we are having Tortilla Casserole for dinner (their moans can be heard all over Portland). I confess, I don't always run to Jesus and His promises. This is real life, and this is where rubber meets the road and we either act on what we say we believe or we let worry and fear monopolize our lives and drive us to despair.
We get to choose. Trust in the Lord or freak out.
More and more I'm choosing trust. Because there is no return for worry. But there's always a great blessing in trust. God takes care of the real life stuff. He provides. He heals and restores. And he gives grace to moms who have run out of creative dinner choices. Trust brings hope and peace. Worry brings fine lines and wrinkles. I can't afford Botox, so I think trust is a better way for me to go.
And here's what Jesus says, His promise to us:
Matthew 6:25-34
"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? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we wear?' 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."
Trust in real life means God is in control of the practical things too, and freaking out is a waste of time and energy. And Lord knows, I need all the energy I can get.