Jesus Calling, by Sarah Young -- February 21

Today's Jesus Calling is perfect:

Trust and thankfulness will get you safely through this day. Trust protects you from worrying and obsessing. Thankfulness keeps you from criticizing and complaining: those "sister sins" that so easily entangle you.

Keeping your eyes on Me is the same thing as trusting Me. It is a free choice that you must make thousands of times daily. The more you choose to trust Me, the easier it becomes. Thought patterns of trust become etched into your brain. Relegate troubles to the periphery of your mind, so that I can be central in your thoughts. Thus you focus on Me, entrusting your concerns into My care.

Colossians 2:6-7; Psalm 141:8; I Peter 5:7

I have needed His safety getting through this day. There have been all kinds of pitfalls. Worry and obsessing, criticizing and complaining, have been part of the fabric of me the last several days. Whew! I'm so glad He called me on it.

What great words: "The more you choose to trust Me, the easier it becomes. Thought patterns of trust become etched into your brain." We have to discipline ourselves in order to make the right choice "thousands of times daily." I'm reminded of this passage:

⁷ It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? ⁸ But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. ⁹ Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? ¹⁰ For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. ¹¹ All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

¹² Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, ¹³ and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. (Hebrews 12:7-12)

I love that last verse. We make paths for ourselves, whether straight or crooked. Worry and criticism form crooked paths that will put us--our limbs, our minds--out of joint. Trust and thankfulness form straight paths that allow us to heal. Healing is our lifeline till we get to Heaven, where we won't need to be healed anymore. Lord, help me build a pathway of trusting and thanking You from the heart.