Category — ramblings

I’ve been reading this Summer… a lot.  The girls have to read at least 30 minutes per day, and I have been reading with them.  I have also been staying up with Eric as he works into the wee hours of the morning, and most often I read then as well.  Needless to say I’ve read quite a few books in the past 2 months.

But something I read tonight in one of these books struck a chord with me, and I thought I’d share it.  It is in response to a question about how a place that the characters are visiting is making them feel – giving them a completeness, a wholeness, a rightness to the world that they have never known.

“There is a love here that is rarely found on earth.  Perhaps in families, certainly between a husband and wife on occasion, but almost never in the world at large.  Love governs everything here.  Everything.  Love and the continually practiced presence of the Most High.

“Yeseph explained it once to me.  He said that the Most High is indeed ever-present with his creation, with us.  But we often lose sight of him – we fall away from him unless we practice his presence.  By that he meant we must keep him with us in our thoughts and deeds, lest we forget.

“For it is not the One who forgets us, but we forget him.  It is how we are made, a defect perhaps, but one that makes belief necessary.  And belief is the Most High’s greatest gift.  So even there he has rescued us.”

“Rescues us from ourselves.  I see.  Is it love that transforms even the common things – the sunrise yonder, for one – into such works of beauty?  Is it love that makes me feel as if all my life until now was a life lived in shadow?”

“Oh, yes!  Love, and the knowledge of the Most High”

“But I know very little of the Most High.  How can it be that I feel as I do?”

“In your heart of hearts you know him.  Durwin used to say that all men were born with the knowledge of the Most High in their hearts.  The trick is to spend more time remembering, and less time forgetting what we already know.”

“From now on I will spend all my time remembering.”

This is an excerpt from “The Sword and the Flame” by Stephen Lawhead.  It’s the third book in the Dragon King Trilogy.

I think that it is quite applicable to our lives as well.

We do often lose sight of God in the busyness of our day-to-day lives.  We do often forget Him as we go along through life.  The trick, it seems, is to spend more time remembering.

How is your memory today?

So I made this list a couple of years ago.  I like to revisit it every so often to a) remind myself of the goals I set and b) to update it with the things that have been completed, and see those which are no longer relevant.

Right now there is much that is irrelevant.  And not enough of the others done!  Eek!

Anyway, here is my list – as also seen in the bottom left sidebar.

My 1001 day is Wednesday, January 12, 2011

house and yard maintenance
1. get stairs on the deck - hopefully next Summer – won’t make it by the deadline though.  Bummer.
2. clean and plant flower bed in backyard – actually, we have two of them done.  Yay!
3. build a sunflower house for the girls – I think this one has been given up on.  I tried so many times, but the slugs kept eating all the plants.  Grrrrr.
4. clean and maintain the flowerbed outside the office – this is an ongoing one that I haven’t done nearly as much as I need to this Summer.  It’s planted though.
5. finish planting the pathway to garden – this too has changed.  We pulled most of it out as the grass was growing over everything.  It has become something for the NEXT 101 in 1001 list.
6. finish making stepping stones for path – well, if I thought there would actually be a stepping stone path I would do this.  Looks like we are using flagstones instead though… if it ever gets reborn.
7. terrace back hillside for garden - terraced?  yes!  for a garden?  not so much.  It looks great though!
8. find a new home for the evergreen trees before they get too large to move – most of them are gone due to disease or just plain growing too large and taking over the driveway.  The one in the middle of the front yard has me worried though.  It could become a very large tree in not too many more years.  I hate to cut it down though – it’s such a pretty tree.  We shall see.  Maybe I can replace it with a tree of a different kind.
9. paint the outside of the house – once again, the colors have been chosen, we are just waiting for the finances to do it (you know, after we fix the cars and the furnace and the… you get the idea)
10. finish M’s mural – this requires me to have access to the wall to paint.  And now she thinks she wants her room to be blue instead of pink.  It may never be completed before it’s painted over.  :’(
11. finish A’s mural - again, need to be able to get to the wall. I really want to get this one done though.
12. get laundry room remodeled – we put in a new washer/dryer last winter and added some shelving, tiled the floor and painted a wall.  I think that’s about all we can do to it.
13. finish bathroom remodel – uh, yeah.  there is so much here.
14. put down hardwood floors - again, it keeps getting put off due to finances.  We did get the tile in downstairs though.
15. re-carpet the downstairs – Not gonna happen.  We put tile down instead and i love it!
16. tile the stairs – going with hardwood instead, although we have everything but the wood to re-tile the entryway.  almost there.
17. clean out the garage – progress is being made.  Goodwill has seen much of me lately.  I have to get it cleaned out now – need the space to fix my car.  ugh.
18. fix the garage door opener – someday this will happen, I’m sure.
19. fix the side fence & gate – again, this will be moved to the next list.  Hopefully next Summer?

office – most of these can just be junked.  I just need to clean the office out and convert it into usable space.
20. get all the fabric organized and PUT AWAY - or donated.
21. get filing done
22. KEEP filing done – do all filing 1x per month
23. get all buttons, clasps & hooks organized -(95% there!)
24. make and hang a ribbon organizer
25. hang pictures/whiteboards up - DONE.
26. get rid of the extra boxes
27. post unwanted fabrics to sell every 6 weeks - or just donate them
28. unpack & put away office supplies from move - or just donate them
29. donate/pass on patterns that are too small for the girls - or just donate them

- it is hard to read through this list and see all the plans I had for Mimsi Bags… plans which are now no more.  A chapter of my life has been closed in this area and I have moved on, but it’s still hard to see dreams that have been forgotten.
work – work, too, has changed.  I need to just get rid of fabrics and notions that I don’t intend to use in the very near future so that the office is (again) usable for other pursuits.  Having a music room would rock.  haha.

30. get rid of excess flowers
31. remove flowers from website
32. find a new home for Carole’s table runners - I need to return these to her daughter.
33. finish moving TC products over
34. Clean up website – delete old product pages- does deleting the whole thing count?
35. sell/donate purchased bags – sooooo done!
36. build wholesale site
37. send out newsletter to wholesale companies every 6 weeks
38. make swatch books
39. hire a bookeeper
40. get all patterns copywritten - I would still like to do this in the event I ever choose to sell them.
41. review 2 products each month
42. update/catalog orders & donations 1x per month
43. send out newsletter 2x per month
44. post new blog 1x per week for Mimsi
45. post 6 blogs per month for gift guides family (recipes, reviews, etc)
46. find wholesale supplier for fabric
47. make 1 RTS/art bag each week
48. do inventory- this needs to happen, just as a course of action for donating things.  taxes people.
49. meet with mastermind group each week

Health/cooking
50. cook 3 vegeterian/vegan meals per week – well, I’m not sure how many we eat each week, but we eat lots of veggies around here.
51. learn to use 1 new ingredient per month – yeah, this has so not been happening.
52. post 2 new recipes per month – um… we just won’t go there k?
53. exercise 3x per week – I was doing sooooooo good here, and I am getting back into it now. hopefully it will stick a bit longer this time!
54. drop 4 dress sizes – talk to me again at Christmas.  I hope to be well on my way here by then.  I had dropped one, but then I threw my back out & well, you know how that goes.  ugh.
55. learn to use the dutch oven well – didn’t even use it this Summer.  We only went camping once.
56. bake bread once per week (0/52) – I was doing really, really well at this.  Then life got a bit more busy.  And I stopped eating much bread.
57. clean out the fridge 2x per month – this really is a humorous notion.
58. use/freeze leftovers – we are doing much better at this, but I still occasionally toss leftovers.  So wasteful.
59. grow corn – again, we tried.  Slugs.  Nuff said.
60. go on a walk with the girls & Eric at least 1x per week (0/7) um… with others?  can’t I go by myself?
61. climb the stairs at the end of the road 2x per week (0/7) ok.  I really should do this.  it would help with so much.  it just hurts!
62. make healthy snacks for the girls – healthy & what they will eat seems to be a difference of opinion.
63. use up the CSA produce each week – this is sort of working.  life has gotten busy & we just haven’t been home.  so annoying to toss veggies that were so yummy looking… before they became liquid in the fridge drawer.  ick.
64. learn to bake with flours other than wheat - doing better at this.  Not that hard really.  Always more learning to do though.
65. make 1 entire meal from a different country 2x per month – yeah right
66. get a bike – I still really want to do this.  And a bike rack for the car… once it is working again.
67. get up by 7 every day – talk to me in a month – once school starts I will be doing this again.  I was doing really well at this before Summer… and before staying up until midnight with Eric (watching him work while I read)
68. go to bed on time – talk to the man on this one.  I really want him to get to bed by 11 at the latest.  Work has been… crazy.
69. eat 1 raw meal per week – Hooray!  Something I can check off!

personal
70. read psalms each morning – … oops.
71. make Eric’s pants – I’ve only had the fabric for 7 years, what’s the hold up?  FEAR.  yep.  that and time, yeah, time.
72. make Mom H’s piano bench cushion – oh yeah.  Gotta find that fabric again.  It’s in the office.  o_O
73. keep the granite cleaned off – this has been going in spurts.  On again/off again.  Need to do better.
74. have a clean, empty sink each night before going to bed – um, the girls have taken over the dishes.  Needs work still.
75. make at least 1 trip to goodwill each month - does 3 trips last month make up for a few months?  Got more to make though.  Lots more junk to purge.
76. save up for a new car ~new car purchased May 2008
77. build up an emergency fund – every time we get some saved, an emergency comes up.  So was it successful?  dunno – there is no fund right now.
78. post cd’s to swap or take to sell/trade in ~ freecycled a BIG box of cd’s, but there are still more to get rid of.
79. get last summer’s camping trips scrapbooked – and the summer before that, and before that, and bef… well, you get the idea.
80. teach the girls to sew – hmmm.
81. teach the girls to garden – hmmm
82. memorize 1 scripture per week – somebody want to give me the kick in the butt to do this?  nicely, of course.
83. memorize with the girls! – oh yeah, forgot about this one.
84. find the cord for the keyboard – did this a looooooooong time ago!
85. practice the piano again – been forced to play it more regularly due to work, but I could still use actual PRACTICE time.  yep.
86. teach the girls the basics of playing the piano – o_O
87. get M into violin lessons ~ she took lessons for 4 months, then quit.  hmm.  need to find another instrument.
88. go on a date with Eric 1x per month – we have mostly been doing MUCH better at this.  In fact, we were getting 1 date per WEEK there for a while.  wow!
89. find a good babysitter – good friends with kids and Sam have helped with this one.  a lot.
90. have QUALITY 1-on-1 with M each week – hoping that while A is at dance this will happen
91. have QUALITY 1-on-1 with A each week – hoping for this while M is at soccer.  I’m not sure how quality it will be sitting on the sidelines of a soccer field it will be though.  time to talk at least?
92. have QUALITY 1-on-1 with Eric each week so sitting in the same room while he works doesn’t cut it?  oh.
93. finish A’s curtains – riiiiiiiiiiight.  E still has to hang the curtain rod… well once we find it again he does.
94. have “girlfriend time” 1x per month – per MONTH?  Oh no, per WEEK. 
95. send a handwritten letter 1x per month – I’m beginning to think the handwrtten letter is a thing of the past.
96. send a letter to Norma 1x per month – we soooo meed to do this.  Been convicted of it more lately.
97. pray more – ALWAYS
98. read the bible through – start to finish?  really?  I got to Isaiah…
99. read 1 book every 6 weeks (but don’t ignore everything else!) – you mean 6 books every week?  Got this one in the bag.  Oh wait… I guess I need to work on the ignoring part a bit more.  I’m getting much better at putting the book down though!
100. be a better mom – this is a neverending goal.
101. be a better wife – definitely working on this one!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So – the orange ones still need work.  The green ones are done (yay!) and the purple ones are, well, no longer relevant or just aren’t going to happen.  Bummer.

I still have a lot of work to do by January.

Today’s verse is found in Matthew.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” – Mattthew 5:8

Purity.  That’s a pretty hard thing to achieve.  In fact, it’s something that we cannot achieve without God.

But there has to be something that we can do to help that along, right?

Absolutely.

We can guard our heart from impurity.

Think of the old adage – “Garbage in, garbage out” – what we put into our hearts is what will come out of our hearts.  But how do we put things into our hearts?

By putting thing into our minds.

Our eyes and ears are the portals through which ideas enter our mind.  What we take in will affect us – even when we don’t realize it.

Have you ever been reading a book or watching a movie and you felt uncomfortable?  That’s God’s Spirit nudging you to remind you that you shouldn’t be taking that into your mind.

One of the lines from the movie Inception really encapsulated this perfectly.  They were talking about the most powerful virus being an idea.  Once an idea is planted inside your mind, it will begin to grow and take shape and can take over your life – if it is powerful enough.

There is a lot of truth to the old kids song we used to sing – “Be careful little eyes what you see!  Be careful little ears what you hear!”  If we will be careful what we let in, we won’t be haunted by ideas or images that shouldn’t be there, but we can’t ever get rid of.

I remember once sitting at a friend’s house and her husband had rented the movie .8mm.  Not something I want to watch!  There are images in that movie that a person may never be able to get rid of – very sexually violent images.

She and I chose not to watch it, and I took my 5 month old daughter up with us to another room.  But he kept his 1.5 year old down with him to watch it.  I don’t know how old a person has to be before those kind of images will stick, but I would rather not chance it.  Who is to say whether or not one of those images will come back later in his life – and he would have no idea where that idea came from.

²²“The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.

²³“But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” – Matthew 6:22-23

If our eye is clear, it will be easier to live a life of purity.  We will not be so stained and tarnished by this world if we do not take part in the wickedness of this world.

Be careful little eyes what you see.

***SPOILER ALERT***

seriously.  If you haven’t yet seen this movie, don’t read a single sentence of this post.

Just don’t do it.

Go see the movie and prepare to have your mind bent.

Then come back and let’s chat.

Some of my observations:

• the house they lived in – the lighting was EXACTLY the same as in all of his memories.  And the kids were the same age, and in the same place in the back yard.  Even when he “came home”
• Perhaps when Mol showed up, she was actually trying to wake him up?
• His “reality” was driven by guilt.
• He couldn’t go home – he was trapped.
• He couldn’t do an honest day’s work because his wife killed herself – and he was blamed for murdering her.
• He was coerced at the last possible moment to work for a corrupt corporation which enabled him to avoid jail.
• He had a “savior” just when he needed it to remove him from the claws of said corporation.
• His totem was in the hands of at least 2 other people… and it wasn’t even his totem.
• When they constructed from memory, they built Mol’s childhood house, but not his.
• His father-in-law was in LA waiting for him, but lived in Paris.
• His FIL was not French.
• His wife was
• His mother-in-law sounded like his wife, but lived in the US with his kids – not in Paris with her husband.  Why didn’t they move?
• His crime was so heinous that the US gov’t would pull strings & go past political issues to get him back to the USA from France… but not any other country?  And it wasn’t something that would normally merit that kind of action by the gov’t.  (but guilt would make it seem larger in his own mind)
• his kids knew where he was to call him, but the gov’t couldn’t track him.

These are just a few of the things that have come to mind since last night.

So, do I think he ever fully “woke up” – no.  I don’t think we ever saw his actual reality.  If the top layer were reality, the kids would be in different clothes and would have aged from his memories.  They didn’t.

But who knows just how deep he was at that point?

Is it all just the delusions of a mental patient?

Are any of the characters real?

And for those wondering, I think the kids are the actual totem.  And them turning around doesn’t mean he’s out.  I think it means he’s in even more deeply.

~~~~~~~~

One thing I wondered though… regarding the phone call from the kids.  They sounded older than they looked.  She sounded very much like an 8 year old.  It is almost as if they had been brought to wherever his body was and were tring to talk to him to pull him out.

What are your thoughts?

1 HAVE MERCY upon me, O God, according to Your steadfast love; according to the multitude of Your tender mercy and loving-kindness blot out my transgressions.

2 Wash me thoroughly [and repeatedly] from my iniquity and guilt and cleanse me and make me wholly pure from my sin!

3 For I am conscious of my transgressions and I acknowledge them; my sin is ever before me.

4 Against You, You only, have I sinned and done that which is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified in Your sentence and faultless in Your judgment.(A)

5 Behold, I was brought forth in [a state of] iniquity; my mother was sinful who conceived me [and I too am sinful].(B)

6 Behold, You desire truth in the inner being; make me therefore to know wisdom in my inmost heart.

7 Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean [ceremonially]; wash me, and I shall [in reality] be whiter than snow.

8 Make me to hear joy and gladness and be satisfied; let the bones which You have broken rejoice.

9 Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my guilt and iniquities.

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right, persevering, and steadfast spirit within me.

11 Cast me not away from Your presence and take not Your Holy Spirit from me.

12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.

13 Then will I teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted and return to You.

14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness and death, O God, the God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness (Your rightness and Your justice).

15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise.

16 For You delight not in sacrifice, or else would I give it; You find no pleasure in burnt offering.(C)

17 My sacrifice [the sacrifice acceptable] to God is a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart [broken down with sorrow for sin and humbly and thoroughly penitent], such, O God, You will not despise.

18 Do good in Your good pleasure to Zion; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

19 Then will You delight in the sacrifices of righteousness, justice, and right, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering; then bullocks will be offered upon Your altar.

Psalm 51 – Amplified Version

There is something more important than any outward manifestation of our faith that may show.

Our heart.

We may life the purest life of anyone we know, but if our heart is not pure, our works amount to a pile of crap… literally.

But if our hearts are pure, the offerings of our lives will be met with delight by God.

So I ask, how is your heart?

Is God on the throne, or are you?  Do you covet the things of this world, or do you set them aside in the pursuit of God?

I will admit that often when I look at my own heart, it is a dark place – more often than I’d care to admit!  But God will cleanse our hearts if we ask Him to.  He will cleanse them day after day, moment after moment, all we must do is ask.

And so I ask.

Dear God, I come before you today and ask.  Create in me a clean heart.  Clean house – get the cobwebs out of those dusty corners.  Take the trash to the dump, take the stuff I don’t need to goodwill.  Put the stuff I do need where it goes so I can find it.  I know that I have neglected some rooms of my heart (much as I neglect certain rooms of my house) and they have gotten filled up with so much stuff it’s hard to get in.  I ask that You would clean them out, and show me how to keep from re-accumulating so much stuff.

Then Lord, I ask that You would renew Your Spirit within me.  Fill my life with your peace.  Fill my mind with Your ways and cause my heart to hurt for those that You hurt for.  Help me to see this world through Your eyes – and cause me to be your hands and feet to reach out to them.

Thank you, Lord, that You love me.  Even when I am prideful and arrogant and angry and willful and obstinate and say or do things that hurt others.  Thank you for showing me the areas in my life that need to be worked on.  And thank you for walking by my side as I learn to be more like You.

Teach me Your ways.  Inscribe Your statutes upon my heart that I may not forget them.  Help Your Word to be my daily bread – the food that I need to survive each day – and don’t let me starve any longer.

Draw me close to You.  Break my heart for the things that break Yours.  Teach me humility.  And above all, help me to not get in the way of You.  Help me to point people to You.. only to You.

This week we are studying 1 Samuel 16:1-13.  This is the passage where Samuel anoints David as the next king over Israel – while Saul is still very much on the throne.

The first verse is as follows:

¹The LORD said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go.

There is so much in that verse!  First, there is the question – how long will you grieve, since I have rejected him. Samuel was sitting in Ramah, apparently with a great amount of grief and dispair.  Last week we saw that Israel told Samuel they wanted a king – having judges and prophets was no longer enough for them.  After all, the other countries around them all had kings, why not them?  (such a human trait, no?  Wanting to have whatever those around us have.)

So Samuel is rejected by Israel, although it was really God that was rejected.  Saul is chosen by God to be king over Israel, and anointed by Samuel.  At first Saul does great.  He is humble and contrite of heart.  He is scared of the responsibility.  He doesn’t think he qualifies for the job.

Apparently that changed.

Over time Saul grew into the status and enjoyed being King.  He took credit for things others did.  He decided to take Samuel’s position and offer a sacrifice to God before the Israelites.  Don’t misunderstand – he did good things too.  He waged a war against the Philistines and drove them out of Israelite land, temporarily.

But then he chose to disobey God.

God sent him to wipe out the Amalekites.  Why?  Because of the way they treated the children of Israel while they were escaping from Egypt.  Because they were tormenting the small town on the outskirts of Israel.  Because they were the cause of God’s children crying out to Him.

Saul was told to keep nothing and to destroy everything.

But he didn’t.

Instead, Saul and the Israelite army chose to keep the best of the livestock.  He chose to bring Agag, the king of the Amalekites back with him… alive.  And he had turned his back on God.

How do we know this?  How do we know that he turned away from God?

“…for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the LORD your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction.” – 1 Samuel 15:15b

“But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the LORD your God in Gilgal.” – 1 Samuel 15:21

“Then he said, “I have sinned; yet honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may bow before the LORD your God.” – 1 Samuel 15:30

What is the phrase that is repeated over and over in these verses?

The Lord your God.

Not the Lord my God, but your God.

Not good, Saul.  Not good at all.

God had make him king over Israel – king over God’s chosen people – and he rejected God.  What he failed to realize was that God had placed him there… and God could remove him as well.

And God could choose someone else to be king over Israel.  Another family to begin a dynasty.

Which He did:

“And Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you. For you have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you from being king over Israel.” – 1 Samuel 15:26

And that catches us up to verse 1 of 1 Samuel 16…

Wow – I hadn’t realized how long it has been since I posted a setlist!  Life has been just a tad busy I guess.  Sorry about that!

This week’s topic was centered around worry in our home groups, and the passage we were focusing on was 1Samuel 13:1-14.  It highlights a time when Saul decided to take matters into his own hands instead of waiting on Samuel, or, rather, waiting on God.

Worry and impatience.  Anxiety.

There are so many times in the Bible where this comes up and causes problems for people!

With that in mind, our setlist focused on giving our anxieties to God and keeping a heavenly focus.

• Forever [F]
• Today is the Day [F]
• Rain It Down [A]
• We Will Worship You [D]
• kids storytime
• Beautiful One [E]
• announcements
• message – Staying Small in Your Own Eyes
• Trading My Sorrows [G]

It was a really great sermon, and hopefully we got a good recording of it.  I will post it this week if so.

I really liked leading Rain it Down and We Will Worship You back to back – the first focuses on crying out to God in the midst of the storms instead of trying to run away from them, and the second calls for is to cry out when we get too comfortable, to content.  These songs remind us that we need God in both the good times and the bad – not just the bad.  It is so easy to forget about God when everything is going well… but we can’t!  Our focus needs to be fixed on Him daily.  Our desire needs to be to have a relationship with Him daily.  We need to seek His face… daily.

And that is often so hard to do!

When things aren’t going our way, it is easy to cry out to God.  It is easy to admit that we don’t have it all together.  It is easy to admit that we need Him, because we (obviously) can’t do it on our own.  We need to translate that same need to when things are going our way too.  We still need Him, and we still can’t do it all on our own.  We just so often don’t recognize our need.

We need to continually focus on Him.

This week our church is studying passages on worry – and how we need to put our trust in God.

It’s some heavy stuff.

We live in a stressful world.  There really isn’t a way to escape stress completely, and it seems that more and more stress seems to find us in greater amounts.  How can we deal with this stress in a way that doesn’t kill us?

Our key verse this week is found in Philippians 4, and it is one of those verses that we have clung to in the past.

“⁶do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Do not be anxious about anything.

That’s how these two verses start out, and that in itself is a wizz-banger isn’t it!  How can we not be anxious in this world?  How can we not find ourselves stressed out and frazzled with anxiety when we don’t know where the next house payment will come from and the car needs to have $4,000 worth of work done so it will run and we need to find a job in an economy where no one is hiring and our loved ones are dying from horrible diseases like cancer and cystic fibrosis and our spouse works crazy long hours to provide for the family, but that means we never get to spend time with them, and our kids are growing faster than we realize and they are entering into a world where drugs and sex will surround them on a daily basis and we can only hope that we have trained them up in the way they should go, and… and… and…

That is the reality for so many of us.  Bills, work, putting food on the table, providing for our families, avoiding serious illness.  We all have these lists of worries and fears and areas that are causing stress in our lives.

How can God expect us to “be anxious for nothing” when that is the world we live in?

Pray about everything

Yes, that’s a loose translation, but it boils it down.  “but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” We need to bring our worries and stresses to God with thanksgiving! Yep, we need to be thankful in the midst of everything.

We need to be thankful that we have a house to live in.  We need to be thankful that the car is stuck in park and we cannot go out and spend money that we don’t have to spend anyway.  We need to be thankful that God has blessed us with these beautiful kids that we can pour His love into on a daily basis and send them out into the world so they can share it with those they come into contact with.  We need to be thankful for the job that is providing the paycheck that is paying the bills, and thankful for the time that we have to pour our lives into those around us while we aren’t working in a 9-5 job.  We need to be thankful for the precious moments that we can set aside to spend time with our spouse – and for friends that help make those moments multiply.

The key here is having an attitude of gratitude.  The key here is where your focus lies.

And while we are being thankful for the opportunity to learn from the experiences, we need to talk to God about them.  We need to pray and lift up these requests to God, to tell Him about what is causing us stress and bringing on fear and anxiety.  But we don’t pray for God’s benefit – He already knows.  We need to pray to remind ourselves that He is in control of our lives.  To remind ourselves that we can’t do it on our own.

We need God.  He is bigger than anything that life throws our way.

Take a look at that long list up there again.  That is my list right now.  I could very easily become so fearful and burdened by anxiety that I wouldn’t want to get out of bed in the mornings.  So overwhelmed by life that I can’t live it.  And that is just a partial list.

But I’m not.

I have chosen to not let those areas be the main focus of my life, because I know where that path leads.  Focusing on all of the areas of worry and causes of stress will only bring depression and fear into my life, and I want no part of those!

Instead I am choosing to focus on the good things that God has brought into my life.  I am choosing to be thankful for the blessings that He has poured out upon me.  Blessings of good friends and a loving church body that lifts and supports our family when we need it.  Blessings of a husband that willingly works at a job that brings with it a huge amount of stress and a high level of demand so he can provide for his family.  The blessing of a God that is bigger than anything that satan chooses to throw my way.

I am choosing to be thankful that God is my strong tower, the fortress that I can run into when I am under attack.

And the most beautiful part is what is promised in verse 7.  “and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

God will take those worries and anxieties and stresses and replace them with His peace.  His peace will be the shield that surrounds your heart and mind and life.  And when we trade our worries for His peace, our lives are better.  We don’t get sick as often.  We don’t suffer from anxiety.  High blood pressure isn’t as much of a problem.  We are more healthy.