Dec 1 - Matthew 6:27

Can all your worries add

a single moment to your life?

Matthew 6:27

 

In one of the first devotionals that I ever remember reading, the writer talked about “working the night shift.”

 

He wasn’t “working” a job. He was talking about staying awake half the night … worrying.

 

And he called his worry “sin.”

 

“How arrogant am I,” he said, “to think that I can’t close my eyes for a few hours and trust the creator of the universe to carry a few burdens.

 

“Sleep,” he said, “is faith. It is trust.” It is giving over our … well, let’s call it what it is … “control” to the Good Shepherd who says, “Come to me, all who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11).

 

Control is our greatest idol. Worry is a lack of … wait … I know that we all worry, even many of the most faithful among us!!! For some, it’s a temperament thing. We’re simply anxious. Sorry! (And generally, we don’t like it!)

 

We know that if God created the universe and holds the world (and its events) in his hands, it’s a bit of a failure of faith to not trust God to carry the weight of our problems for those eight hours as we sleep.

 

We know that.

 

We know that our worries can’t add a single moment to our lives.

 

Yet we still worry.

 

If you have a nervous personality, I’m not calling you more or less of a sinner than all of us already are. We all sin. And we all fall short. This is just one of the hundreds ways that we create distance between us and God.

 

So let me redeem this. Let me turn worry into a matter of faith in a good way! Every time you worry, make it an occasion for prayer! Worry is simply surfacing your desire to control. While prayer is a matter of trust as you place your life intentionally in God’s gracious hands.

 

All our weaknesses – and we all have different ones – are simply an opportunity to turn to the God who can do what we can’t do on our own. And in this case … it’s the ability to help us quit working the night shift and sleep better as we trust more.

 

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who less and less

wants to add single moments to life

and more and more wants to

add multiple moments to

my time in eternity