Looking Back at 2013

     I was thinking about all the blessings our Lord gave to me in the year 2013 due to my paltry faith.  When I look back on the year as a whole, I see with a much higher degree of clarity how my life was changed for the better through my faith.  Our Father undoubtedly removed tremendous obstacles in my path giving me the clearance I needed to complete the grand journey he sent me upon.    

    

One of the most significant changes is the gain I have made toward the goal of putting life and its worries in the hands of our Lord Jesus. I am a habitual worrier over circumstances I cannot control.  It strengthens me to clutch this passage from Matthew near to my heart.

“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 than food, and the body more 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?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

(Matthew 6:25-27 NIV)

     I am not perfect, not even within sight of the doorstep, but our Lord did not come to call the righteous.  Similar imperfections are found within this imperfect life that travels not the smooth, level road.  It has many ups and downs, twists and turns.  Surely, those are the traits which make life exciting.  Our faith helps smooth and level some of the severe areas, but was never intended to take all those glorious imperfections away.  We learn more from the downs than the ups, and the ups would never be so good were it not for the downs.  Life is a learning adventure.  Learn its lessons, making use of those lessons to improve one’s self.  But…worry?  I think we will increase our enjoyment of life a great deal if we flavor it with a big spoonful of chances from our faith, minus the worry, of course.

     

At day’s end and to reduce worry, where would you place your trust?  Let us consider the options;  there is a large following of machines; perhaps technology in  general would be the thing; many would choose, narcissistically, their personal intelligence;  hopefully, that choice would be in our Lord and God, whom is, was, and forever shall be.  I do not think the courageous American, Patrick Henry, would mind if I did a little borrowing from him and extended his thinking just a bit:  Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me Jesus or give me death!

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 3:5-6