anxiety

Consider the Ravens

Posted on by Betsy

A friend recently asked me why I started writing this devotional blog. I had to think back to 2019 when I wrote my first one on April 25th after spending a week with my daughter, who encouraged me and helped me figure out WordPress. But it began a few months earlier, when I had the blessed luck to fall into a seminar in Atlanta with a comedic genius named Jon Acuff. I am still feasting on the manna he poured out that day. I decided to go ahead with starting these daily devotionals because of his one-hour session of encouragement to risk-take.

One of the many great things I heard that day is, “Don’t give real time to fake worries.” Let that just settle into your brain a minute. Take another sip of coffee, and let’s dwell there for a moment.

How many times have you spun out with anxiety over something, only to see it through in real time as the no-big-deal that it truly was? How many hours of sleep have you lost fretting over something, only to wake up to the reality of:

1. It wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be.

2. It was already being taken care of.

3. You had no control over it anyway.

4. It looked much smaller in the daylight.

Yet you spent real time obsessively worrying over it. Time that could have been spent more productively.

I spent a lot of time, and I mean a LOT, worrying about my parents’ deaths. Perhaps this is a preoccupation of pastors, since we sit with a lot of families alongside a deathbed as part of our pastoral care. I can remember in my early years of ministry making the fiftieth visit to a home where someone was slowly dying of cancer, and driving away thinking I could never have the strength to watch my parent linger like that. This worry fueled many a sleepless night.

As it turned out, my father came home from the grocery store one day with a headache and died of a sudden brain aneurysm, and five years later my mother died in her sleep. I was with her that evening, and neither of us had a clue she would die in a few hours as we kissed and said, “See you tomorrow”. And so all those years of fake worry in real time only robbed me of peace in a situation I could not control anyway.

Psalm 46 breathes a word of sanity into our spinning:

God is our refuge and strength,
    an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
    and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
    and the mountains quake with their surging.

God is looking at your anxiety this morning and whispering, “I got this.” 

Jesus reminds us:

Matthew 6

Do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?

Today, let’s take that worry and cast it out. Let’s bundle it up in newspapers and carry it out to the curb. Let’s approach the throne of grace and lay it down. And then leave it there. The only beneficiary of our worry is the Enemy, who loves the distraction worry brings into the abundant life Jesus is trying to give us.

Don’t let him win.

Fish Tails by Michelle Robertson

Don’t Let Go of the Rope

Posted on by Betsy

I have been blessed to serve two churches with outstanding preschools. At both the Peachtree City United Methodist Church and the Kitty Hawk United Methodist Church, I have been able to look out my office window and see kids running around, playing, laughing, and learning. When I moved to the Outer Banks and had my first conversation with my District Superintendent about where I might serve, I emphasized to him that I hoped I could serve a church with a preschool. It is that important to me.

One of my favorite things to see in September is the youngest group of children learning how to walk in a line. Isn’t’ it funny to think that at one point when you were little, you had to be taught how to walk in a line? For safety and for learning, our two-year old class of Seal Pups walks with a rope. The rope has handles for each child, and they go marching along the sidewalk to the playground each holding on tight. Kids-on-a-rope is one of the cutest things you will ever see.

We all need a rope to hang on to, don’t we? We need the security and comfort of attaching ourselves to something bigger and stronger in those times when we feel weak and afraid. We need to attach ourselves to something that won’t let go of us.

Let’s see what Joshua says about it:

Joshua 1:9 New International Version (NIV)

9 Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

That, right there, is your rope. The Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Every preschool child knows that the teacher will never let go of them. And those kids hang on for life.

So, too, should we hang on to Jesus….for life. One of his strongest promises to us comes in the book of John when he says, “I came that you might have life and have it ABUNDANTLY.” Not just ordinary life, not just plain day to day life, but abundant life. Think about that last word … abundantly. The Greek translation of that word is “pertaining to that which is not ordinarily encountered.” So what Christ offers is something extreme, something extraordinary, something that surpasses everything else. Christ offers true, real, deep and abiding happiness.

But sometimes our happiness, our joy, and our peace get stolen. And we know by whom. It says in the Scripture, “The thief comes to KILL, STEAL and destroy.”  We know that this passage is referring to Satan. And we know what tools he uses … he uses worry. He uses anxiety. He uses fear. He uses distraction and confusion. And when those things are deployed, we lose our grip on Jesus and let go of the rope.

Friends, don’t let go of the rope. Don’t take your eyes off of Jesus. Don’t let worry blur your vision. Do not be afraid! For the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

Don’t Let Go by Michelle Robertson