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.

Distilled Devotions

[Stressful situation sinisterly sits, squelching, sucking sense and sanity from my solitude and soirees...] Everything is murky and unclear.

But this I know: 

"Trusting God" is for the days of "normal" and the days of doubt. In fact it is specifically made for days of doubt. And right now I don't know what will happen or exactly what I need to do or how to do it, so I'll call this a day of doubt. 

Worrying is not trusting. I'm commanded to trust. I'm commanded not to worry. And worry, which is sin, burns up tons of energy. And I need to conserve my energy.

God is capable of doing great and mighty things whether I acknowledge Him or not. But He acts where there is faith. He doesn't act where there isn't. In fact, Mark 6:5-6 says,

And He could do no miracle there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He wondered at their unbelief. (emphasis added) 

So if I want to see God act, I have to believe. There is no other way--continuing to worry instead of starting to trust is like trying over and over to turn on the toaster when it isn't plugged in.

I can't change anybody in this situation, except me. I can't even change me by myself. I am dependent on God to change the broken parts of me, and I am definitely dependent on Him to work in the other actors in this situation. 

To worry about the situation as my course of action is absurd, because nothing I can do will change any one of them.

To trust God with the situation is the one course of action that makes perfect sense, because trust activates God to work... and He is THE ONLY Person who CAN change each one of them and me!

So today I need to stop spinning my wheels--wasting precious time, wasting precious energy--and trust.

How do I practice trusting? By expressing it verbally and mentally. 

Verbally, I express it to the Lord in the hearing of myself, and I express it within my own spirit to myself. :) "I trust You, Lord." "I trust the Lord." Here's a perfect example from my devotional reading for today. Psalm 56:3-4 says,

When I am afraid [or, "In the day I am afraid..."--love that!], I will put my trust in You [or, "I am one who puts..."--good, a change of self-perception!]. In God, whose Word I praise, in God I have put my trust; what can mere man do to me?

Mentally, I express trust by consciously choosing to chew on good content. That is, I need to dwell on God's extreme ability to handle the details of my life, His excellent past record of doing so, and His extreme love for me--instead of allowing my mind to wallow around in the problems I'm concerned about.

Take-aways:

Trust is custom-made for the day of doubt, the day of fear.

I need to express trust to God in the hearing of myself.

I need to keep my mind "out of the gutter" regarding my problems.

Worry is sin that wastes my time and energy and makes God unmotivated to work on my behalf.

Trusting is an act of obedience so pleasing to God that, when He sees it, He is motivated to act on my behalf, because it lifts Him up to His proper place.