Wednesday, January 19, 2011

People Are Hurting

The number of hits on yesterday's post (an all time high for an ordinary Tuesday) and the responses that found my inbox confirm it.

People are hurting.

We don't understand. We worry. We're afraid. We want to be rescued. If God is really there for us, why can't we feel Him? Why doesn't He let us in on what He's doing? Why must He fix our issues in His timing? Why not show us the Master Plan so we see our stewing is silly?

But God doesn't work that way. I have a few ideas why, but they don't really matter. God is God. He can work however He wants.

So how do we cope with the pain of living? How do we find any peace amid the struggles which threaten to do us in?

God, why do I have to keep worrying about the same things?

You don't. Trust Me.

Trust Me.

What does that mean?!

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

Tell me about it. Vent to ME. Then let me handle it.

So I take the anxious thought, the nagging concern which wakes me at 3:AM and I pray about it. And twenty minutes later, when my heart is still racing or tears drip into my pillow or I wish I had some wine to knock me out, I pray again. I whisper His name. I replace the cloud in my mind with any verse I can think of to focus on what is true.

Sometimes I feel the peace He speaks of, sometimes not. I find my level of serenity is directly related to what I concentrate on. If I dwell on the problem, I'm toast, but if my mind thinks of God alone, my spirit settles.

Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own.

His words. Not mine.

Trust me. Remember WHO I AM. Let me handle it.

People are hurting, but God's not oblivious.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Why am I reluctant to let it go? What good does it do me?

COME.

I may not get it right and I may have to keep doing it over and over and over, but I'll keep coming, Lord.

COME.

Will you?

3 comments:

Marsha Young said...

Tami -
Isn't that the truth? He says, "Trust me - and - let me handle it" and yet, sometimes we treat the Lord as if he reminded us of "that guy" who years ago told us the same things and then broke our hearts and dumped us (well, maybe you never got dumped, but I did.) :)

But He is not "that guy" - He is the Lord, the one we can always trust, even when we cannot understand what He is doing.

God bless you - Marsha

Miriam Pauline said...

It is such a difficult thing to let it go and let God handle it. But it is so freeing as well. I am thankful that I am beginning to see the results--trusting in little things does make it easier to trust with bigger things. The problem is that I think *I* can handle the little things then find I have had no practice in trust when the big things come. *sigh* You'd think I'd be a quicker study, but I'm not. *sigh*

Thank you for the continued prods to keep trusting.

Kathryn said...

Thank you for this! I am so prone to go my own way, think that I can do it, bear it, handle things on my own. But I can't. I'm so prone to wander. Prone to forget. Prone to not trust the God who holds all things in his hands.