It is 2024 and I was going back through my journal for 2023, and I found the excerpt below dated for April 24, 2023. While I do not remember everything that I was thinking about at the time, it seems that I was quite occupied with some issues in my mind and I was attempting to sort them out in light of who God is and His faithfulness. Below are my personal reflections that, I hope, you will find helpful.
If God will supply all my needs, and if there is no lack in God, and if the Holy Spirit will guide me into all truth, then why do I think that He won’t help and supply my needs wherever I see lack? Certainly, there are teachers we should learn from, but do I have, at root, a trust that God will supply? If I’m fanatic about, or freaking out about anything (whether for my family, for my vocation, for the world generally, or anything else), then that shows a lack of trust and a lack of confidence in God. Freaking out and trusting in God are incompatible notions! If I’m anxious about these matters, then is that trusting God? If I’m too concerned for the future, then is that trusting God? If He will give me words to say; if He will keep His promises to sanctify me and take me home (“He will do it”-1 Thessalonians 5); if He upholds all things by the Word of His power; if He has ordained my days before any of them began (Psalm 139); if God can bring good out of even the evil actions of people (Joseph’s case in Genesis 38ff); if God has given me His Holy Spirit for comfort as an earnest to guarantee my salvation, then what makes me think that He won’t take care of me today or tomorrow or in any specific situation in my life? Given all that God is doing and has done, why would I think He’s going to fail me now? What am I freaking out for, oh Man of Little Faith? I see a little bit of wind and waves, then I’m ready to sink! The Giant shows up and I suddenly forget who God is! And if God chooses to take something from me, does that mean I stop trusting Him (or In Him)? Do I tell the all-wise, omnipotent God that He doesn’t know what He is doing? But if everything is all up to me, then I SHOULD freak out! On the other hand, if God is in control, then I need to just sit down, stop pacing, shut my mouth, and wait on God to send His supply! None of these truths negate action or duty or vocation or anything else that would point towards movement on my part, but these truths SHOULD negate fretting, worrying, or feeling like I’m all alone to fight my battles. God has promised, from the Old Testament to the New Testament, that He will be with us! From Genesis to Revelation God comes to be with us! In Acts, God sends His Holy Spirit to live IN us so that He would reside WITH us forever! How could I not take comfort in such glorious truths?