How to handle today without being overwhelmed by tomorrow

 

Opposition leaders tell CNN News Libyan leader Muammar Qadaffi is looking for a way out. Out of the country that is. Seems he wants to negotiate a safe exit from the North African country recently seized by civil unrest and blamed for the hike in gas prices at American pumps.

Arkansas town suffers worst earthquakes in state history. President Obama restarts Gitmo tribunals. NATO troops kill boys in Afghanistan. Governors and citizens struggle to balance budgets. National debt tops trillions.

These are the national and international headlines. What are yours? What’s happening in your life right now that creates anxiety, disappointment, anger, frustration or hopelessness? Relationships headed south? Checkbook screaming for mercy? Future colored with uncertainty? Wars within battling the wars without for priority?

God’s word, in Psalm 37, provides some good advice on how to handle today without being overwhelmed by tomorrow. The psalm opens with these words, “Fret not because of evil doers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass and whither like the green herb.” Fret not.

In other words, don’t live today as though there’s no tomorrow.

People fret because they believe a lie. We fret because we believe we have no access to the strength of mind, heart, will, and body necessary to surmount the obstacles set before us. We fret because we think the challenges surpass our ability to overcome. We fret because we know we are weak and we think we have no hope. But God says, “Fret not.”

Why? Why is God’s advice to us in the face of critical global, national, and personal events, “Don’t worry?”

Does He not know? Does He not understand? Of course God knows. He is the one who makes known the beginning from the end. There is nothing He does not know. And of course God understands. His wisdom is limitless and His understanding infinite. So why tell us, “Fret not.”

The next verses in Psalm 37 spell it out. “Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

Why does God counsel a worry-free approach to current events and future happenings? Because He is not worried. Because He is not weak. Because He is faithful. And because He sustains those who trust and delight in Him.

Verse 5 reads, “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.”

God works good for those whose faith is in Him. Trust him and He will act. Trust Him and He will lead through the future into eternity. Trust Him, commit yourself to Him, and He will see to it that today, and tomorrow, and the next day, and all the days after that you have sufficient grace to meet the challenge of the day.

The good news is that God offers His insurmountable strength, His unsearchable wisdom, His unrelenting love to those who commit their way to Him. So what will it be? Stagnate in fretting or advance in faith?

Today, the choice is yours.

Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer spiritual reflections. This month’s s contributor of The Good News is Pastor Dale McIntire, who has served as pastor of the Cornerstone Community Church in Grand Marais since April of 1995.