It's Personal

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          I do not think of myself as a worrier. I think of myself as a planner and a fixer. Planning and fixing can be good, but there are times that they can cross over the line into the realm of worry. The thing is that worry can just kind of creep right up on you, and you don’t even realize it is coming. It is pretty sneaky like that. The other night, one of my children was dealing with something that was causing them frustration and even a bit of physical pain. This momma’s heart just wanted to rush right in and fix it for them, and I think that is normal. It isn’t wrong for me to wish I could fix things for them, but the problem came when I went to bed that night. Lying in bed I kept thinking, “if only I had done this, then this situation would be different” or “is it going to get better, what if it doesn’t get better?” I know better than this. I know that this kind of thinking doesn’t do any good, so eventually (I wish I could say immediately) I prayed about it, asked God to help in the situation, to help me not worry and then made a conscious effort to start and thank God every time one of those thoughts would come to my mind.

          When I catch myself worrying, it shows me something. If I am worrying, then I am not trusting that God can take care of my problems. In Deuteronomy 31:8 it says, “Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; He will neither fail you nor abandon you.” (NLT). I have a choice and that is to either believe that God’s word is true and He will take care of it, or doubt His word and think I have to take care of it. For a fixer like me it is sometimes hard to remember that God will take care of me. Sometimes I think that I have to try and do it all on my own first, and then if that doesn’t work, then I can take it to God and let Him handle it.

           One of the things I love the most about this verse is when it says that the Lord will personally go ahead of you. Isn’t it nice to have a personal God? So much of my life I thought of God as this giant man up in heaven on His big white throne looking down on me with disgust. I thought of Him as the judge God, never as the personal God. What a difference it makes when you realize He wants to be personal with you. He takes you and your problems personally. Just like when my child was dealing with the issues this week, it was personal to me. Were they my problems? Not directly, but because it was an issue to him, it was an issue to me. God sees our problems that way as well. If we care about it- He cares about it. The nice thing about God is He isn’t worried about it. He is the ultimate planner and fixer, and He can do it without worrying one bit. Jeremiah 29:11 says that God has a plan for us. It is a good plan, not to bring harm but a good future.

          I also need to remember that Deuteronomy 31:8 says that He will never fail me nor abandon me. There are times that we feel alone in our worries. It seems that no one can help us or maybe that no one will help us. When we look at people, sometimes they let us down and don’t do what we want or think we need them to; the good news is that God will never let us down. He never leaves us or forsakes us, but He is always there holding us up with his victorious right hand (Isaiah 41:10). It seems so much easier to want to let people be the ones who hold us up because we can see them, touch them, and feel them- but people are not constant and they are not perfect. God on the other hand is.

          This week, as we go into Easter, there is no greater reminder that God had a plan to be with us at all times. Christ came as a man who could be touched, seen, and felt, but as a man he was limited to how many people he could help. When God sent Christ to the cross, it was with the plan for him to rise again. When Christ did this, he defeated death, and that opened the door for him to be with us at all times and in all situations. He died so he could live for and within all of us. Does it take faith to believe that, of course, but there is no greater friend to personally be with you than Christ. This week there are two choices I hope you will make. The first one is the most important. If you have never allowed Jesus to be your personal friend, never let God become personal to you I hope you will make the choice to do that now. The second choice is that if you are afraid, discouraged, or worried that you will remember that God wants to be your personal God. He sent a very personal Jesus to be with you and he will never fail you or abandon you. Make the choice to turn your worry, fear, and discouragement to him today.

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