Category: Faith

Once upon a time, I was on my way to my Financial Management class where I was going to present the following devotion:

Matthew 5:24-27 says, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. 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 important than food, and the body more important 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? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

We don’t serve money, we serve the God who provides. So instead of worrying, we can trust. Instead of worrying about what will happen, we can look at our situations through eyes of expectation, knowing that God is faithful and He is able. 

As I was on my way out of the parking lot of the church I work at, I noticed a large orange bag. Curiosity got the better of me, and I put my car in park and got out to inspect the mystery bag. I discovered it was a Nike bag and inside was an empty Nike shoe box. Deciding that the responsible thing to do would be to throw the bag away rather than leave it in the church parking lot, I put it in my car to throw away later. I stopped to get gas, and while my tank was filling, I threw the bag away.

After getting gas and stopping at the bank, I went to Chick-Fil-A to get dinner before my four hour evening class. I placed my order and pulled forward to pay. To my horror, I discovered my debit card was not in my purse, nor was it anywhere in my car, and I had no cash. I pulled up to the window and let the young man working know that I had to cancel my order because I couldn’t find my debit card.

I dreaded the thought of going to class without having eaten and imagined a long night of stomach growls. After canceling my debit card, I saw the irony in losing my debit card and going without dinner while going to Financial Management and giving a devotion on serving God rather than money and not worrying about money and food.

When I got to class, my professor asked how my day was and I said it had gone south quickly and explained what had happened. My professor is amazingly sweet and gave me money to buy something to eat.

Lesson learned: be careful what you teach, your life might turn into the object lesson.

“Tomorrow” by Unspoken is quickly becoming one of my favorite songs. Why? Because I can relate to it! Like everyone else, I have no idea what tomorrow, next week, next month, next year or the next decade will hold.

I am a planner. I like to do lists, timelines, agendas, and syllabi. I like having a plan and knowing what to expect. I wish I could say I have a plan for my life, but aside from a general idea, I do not—I have no idea what to expect.  Already my life doesn’t look very much like what I imagined or planned; which is a good thing!

There are so many things in life that are beyond my control, no matter how detailed my plans are. This lack of control can be very….disconcerting, scary, and frustrating. I’ve seen the truth in Proverbs 16:9 which says, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.” I love the way the New Living Translation words this passage. It says, “We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.”

While I’m not advocating an apathetic approach to life (I still love and believe in planning) or negating the importance of making wise choices, there is a peace that is found when we surrender and realize that God directs our steps. When I allow myself to worry, I reject the rest that comes from a life held in God’s hands.

Isaiah 40:26 helps to put the awesomeness of God directing out steps into perspective. It says, “Lift up your eyes on high And see who has created these stars, The One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name; Because of the greatness of His might and thestrength of His power, Not one of them is missing.” God created, leads, calls the stars by name, and sustains them, and that same God is holding my future and directing my steps! As the Creator and Sustainer of something as intricate as our universe, God is over-qualified for the task of holding and guiding my life.

I wish I could say I am always trusting and always at rest with this knowledge, but I still struggle with fear and worry. And so, I find myself pleading , along with Unspoken, “Come and take the fear away, ‘til there’s nothing left but faith.”

Are you worrying or resting? Have you surrendered your life, dreams, and plans to God or are you struggling to control? Is your life characterized by fear or faith?

When I was 11, one phone call rocked my world. The caller was my dad; he told my mom of  a possible move to an island. The island was Terceira, which is a part of the Azores archipelago, and it is about 2500 miles from New York and 900 miles from Lisbon. If the miles didn’t give it away, Terceira is in the “Mid-Atlantic” time zone.

I quickly and adamantly refused to go. Couldn’t they just leave me at Grandma’s? I also had absolutely no desire to leave my home country or even to visit a beach. Despite my pleading, and probably my tears, I found myself living on a tiny Portuguese island.

While it was an adventure, I became depressed. There is no place like home. I missed the United States. I missed being able to understand what people were saying at stores or restaurants. I missed my extended family. I missed my friends. I missed fast food. I missed American stores. I missed TV. I missed home.

Terceira was absolutely beautiful, but it was not home. Because of my homesickness, I did something that seems silly to me now: for about a year, I wore something red, white, and blue every day. Whether I wore a t-shirt with the US flag, a charm bracelet with a US flag, or painted my nails red, white, and blue. For a year, I wore the colors of my country’s flag every day. The colors reminded me of the place I belonged and the place I was going to return to.

Unlike me, you may have lived in the same state, town, or even the same house your whole life, but you are not where you belong. You are a foreigner. Just like Terceira was not where I belonged, we don’t belong here. This is not our home.

The Bible makes it clear that this world is not home. In John 17:16, Jesus says that we are not of this world. In 1 Peter 2, Peter exhorts the believers to follow Christ’s example and to abstain from sinful desires, and in verse 11 he calls them “aliens and strangers”. The author of Hebrews uses that same phrase about Abel, Enoch, and Abraham in Hebrews 11:13.

We’re just visitors on this earth, and one day we will get to go home, but until then, we can’t settle in and assume a resident’s mentality. Visitors knows that they will be returning home sooner or later, a resident is someone who lives somewhere permanently or on a long-term basis. Visitors may see beauty in the place they are visiting, they may enjoy being there, but deep down they know that there is no place like home.

Have we settled in here or are we anxiously awaiting the time we get to go home? Have we learned the language, adopted the values and customs, and tried to fit in or do we hold tightly to our alien status? Do we live with an eternal perspective that shapes our actions and decisions or are we too caught up in the here and now?

Wouldn’t it be nice if we all had lamps with a wish-granting genie inside? Even better, a genie who granted an unlimited number of wishes.

“You want Andy’s? No problem!” (Andy’s)

“Your dream job? You start Monday!”

“A girlfriend or boyfriend? Take your pick!”

“A new car? Here are the keys!”

“An endless supply of inflation-resistant money? Here is your direct line to the treasury—call anytime, day or night!”

A genie would come in handy, because, let’s face it, we all have things we want! If you have ever wanted your own personal genie, you’re in luck! Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

Your heart’s desires, and all you have to do is delight yourself in the Lord! Sounds easy enough, right? Maybe if we’re really serious about getting our heart’s desires, we could even sing the chorus of “Overwhelmed” by Big Daddy Weave. It couldn’t hurt!

 “I delight myself in You
Captivated by Your beauty
I’m overwhelmed, I’m overwhelmed by You”

But is getting what we want really the point of this verse? I don’t think so. Okay, I’ll be honest, I may have thought so at one point in my life. I may have thought, “I really, really want _______. That’s the desire of my heart, so I am going to delight myself in the Lord so that He’ll give it to me.”   

Because there are things we want, things we don’t have, things that seem out of reach, I think we tend to focus on the second half of this verse. It’s tempting to view delighting ourselves in the Lord as a means to an end. But in doing so, do we reduce our image of the God we’re supposed to be delighting in to a wish-granting genie?

Yes, God is aware of our needs (Matthew 6:8). Yes, He knows how to give us good gifts (Matthew 7:11). But do we seek the gift or the giver? Do we delight ourselves in the idea of being given the desires of our hearts or in the God who gives?

Nothing we desire could ever compare to our awesome, loving, gracious, holy, omniscient, omnipotent God. He is more than we can wrap our minds around, He loves us more than we can comprehend, and He has already given us more than we could ever deserve.  When we stop to think about who He is, how can we do anything but delight in Him?