Jenny Hope

from Dr. James MacDonald www.walkintheword.com

Stick With Today

"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? . . . But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Matthew 6: 25-27, 33

How often do you wake up in the middle of the night with burdens on your heart that keep you from going back to sleep?

It happened to me last night. The clock said, 4:10 a.m. and I was wide awake.

Baggage from yesterday and worries about tomorrow weighed heavily on my mind. What Jesus said in Matthew 6:34 is true. “Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Do you start the day thinking, “I don’t have enough on my mind today. I’m going to borrow trouble from tomorrow and make up some new problems”? Yeah, me neither. The word trouble means adverse circumstances, problems, hardship. And for certain, each day has enough of its own.

Jesus says in effect, “Let’s compartmentalize here. You can’t carry the weight of the past-that’s what forgiveness is for. You can’t carry all the uncertainties of the future-that’s what faith is for; you must focus on today. Let’s deal with what we can.”

We weren’t made for anxiety. The manufacturer’s specifications do not allow for worry. It’s no different than if someone poured sugar in your gas tank or introduced a virus to your computer. Worry does that to the human spirit. When you gather up in your mind on a regular basis a list of all the unknowns of the future and repeatedly review and extrapolate, the uncertainties become so large that it will crush you. Everything gets sideways when you’re on the anxiety program.

You were not fashioned for fear.

You were not wired for worry.

You were made to live today-“Sufficient for the day is its own trouble”-to focus on the things that you can affect, to work on the things that you can improve that are right in front of you.

You and I have limited capacity. We can’t carry yesterday or our imagined tomorrow. We’ve got to trust the Lord today, from one day’s 4 a.m. to the next.