Trusting God Day by Day: 365 Daily Devotions (3 page)

I
believe we need to look for reasons to laugh every day. My daughters often call me to share funny things their kids did or things they are noticing about the children’s personalities as they are growing up. I am glad they take the time to share those things with me. We laugh, and then I tell Dave and he laughs, too. We could have missed the laughter if they would have been too busy to call or felt it was unimportant.

I just spent five days with my youngest grandson, and I laughed more in those five days than I normally do in two months. He has learned to laugh out loud, and so he does it for no reason at all. He just suddenly laughs out loud and then, when we laugh at him laughing, he laughs again and again. He does it as long as we will keep the game going. I can assure you that he is not worried, anxious, or thinking about all of his mistakes in life. No wonder Jesus told us to be like little children if we want to enter and enjoy His Kingdom.

Funny things probably happen to you every day; learn to look for them and realize how important it is to stop for laughter. I wasted too much of my life being mad and sad, and I have a lot of catching up to do. I am committed to taking every opportunity I can find to laugh; when I can’t find one, I am going to try to make one. Some of us are naturally more serious than others. You don’t have to feel bad if that is your personality. It is mine, too. But you don’t have to live without laughter. You can begin to intentionally look for reasons to laugh!

I think Jesus was playful and He looked for reasons to laugh. I can imagine Him teasing His disciples and playing pranks on them. I know that He was serious and sober minded, but He was always in perfect balance, so He had to have humor, too.

D
avid prayed that he could fly away from trouble and be at rest, but running from trouble is not always the answer. There are times we must face the enemy and defeat him in God’s power just as David defeated Goliath. God has given us “going through” power. It is not God’s will for us to run or hide from challenges, but to confront them head-on, knowing we can fight a battle and remain at rest. After all, the battle is not ours, but God’s!

God won’t let you run away from your troubles
and
keep going forward in His purpose for your life. He won’t force you to face them, but eventually you’ll realize that these same problems will keep showing up if you don’t face them. The good news is God gives us power and wisdom to deal with our situations.

Elijah tried to run and hide, but God made him go back to the place he ran from and continue the work he had been called to do. After God allowed him to rest, He confronted him about his attitude. He asked why he was hiding and what he thought he was doing. Elijah answered out of a bitter attitude and distorted thinking. He said he alone was left to serve God and people were seeking to kill him. He
told God that all the Israelites had forsaken His covenant, destroyed His altars, and killed His prophets, and once again Elijah sounded as if he was filled with self-pity as He told God that he was the only one left who was faithful to God. (see 1 Kings 19:9–14). God told Elijah that, in actuality, He had seven thousand prophets left who had not bowed their knees to Baal, and He also told Elijah to get back to work.

When we are not well rested, our thinking gets distorted and we lose proper perspective. We want to run away from responsibility, but as we can see with Elijah, God will not allow us to do that because escape is never the answer to life’s challenges.

E
ach day we have certain purposes we wish to accomplish, and at the end of the day it is proper to rest, not only physically, but our souls also need a rest. We need rest physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Faith allows us to rest spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. Even our will gets a rest when we have trust in God. We don’t worry or reason, we are not upset or downcast, and we are not trying to make something happen that is not God’s will—we are at rest! Paul was singing in
jail. Jesus was praying for others while being crucified. Joseph decided that if he was going to be a slave, he would be the best slave his owner ever had. And later Joseph decided that if he was going to be a prisoner (even though he did not commit a crime), he would be a prisoner with a good attitude.

We need to be honest about what the real cause of our stress is. Is it really our circumstances in life, or is it the way we respond to the circumstances? There is a rest available, and we must strive to enter it. Entering the rest of God should be our number one priority after receiving Jesus as our Savior. I ask you: Have you learned to sit and enter God’s rest? We may say that we are trusting God, but there is no evidence of trust unless we stay seated in Christ.

T
he tiny word “all” is used 5,675 times in the Bible, give or take a few depending on which translation you are reading. It is a small word that means a great deal, and yet we pay so little attention to it. If we read a Scripture that has the word
all
in it and ignore the “all,” it changes the entire context of the Scripture. The word
all
takes us into infinity. Where does “all” stop? How far does it go and what does it include?

Jesus is the Lord of all. Our Al-mighty God, all-sufficient Savior, all blessings flow from Him, and He is all that we need. We frequently say that God is our all, but have we ever stopped to truly understand the impact of that one little word? “All” leaves nothing outside of God’s control.

God knows
all
things (see John 21:17)! Don’t miss the “all” in that statement. He knows the end from the beginning, so He must know everything in the middle. He also has all power, all authority; all things are under His feet, and He fills everything everywhere with Himself (see Matt. 28:18 and Eph. 1:21–23). He sees all, hears all, and is everywhere all the time. If these things are true, then why do we still worry and become anxious? Why do we get emotionally upset when we have a problem or things are not going our way? It must be because we truly don’t believe He has all power, knows all things, and loves us with all of the love that exists in the universe.

How many of our sins does He forgive? Does He forgive some, most, or all? The Bible says that He forgives them all and continually cleanses us from all unrighteousness. It is one of those “all and forever-now” things. God did not put our sins off to the side so He could glance over at them occasionally; He has removed them completely (see Ps. 103:12).

I
f there are no impossibilities, then we can live in constant victory and nothing can threaten us or make us feel afraid of the future. Everything that is in the will of God will be accomplished in His way and timing.

Is life too much for us? Is there anything that we just cannot handle? Not according to God, for He says through the apostle Paul that we can do
all
things through Christ Who is our Strength. We are ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infused inner strength into us (see Phil. 4:13).

Before we let go and let God be our all in all, we usually have to find out the hard way that we cannot do it all on our own. The hard way means we keep trying and failing over and over until we admit total dependence on God. It can be a long and painful journey and some never reach the end of themselves, but for those who do, it is the beginning of living with their soul at rest. They know they can’t do it all—but they also know that God can, and they decide that watching Him do what needs to be done, as only He can do, will be entertaining. I love to watch God work. It is one of my greatest pleasures in life.

Since we know that God is keeping the universe running properly every second of every day, why would we doubt that He can take care of us? He has all power, all authority, all wisdom, and He loves us with a perfect love that is promised to us unconditionally and forever. Are you leaning on Him in every situation? Do you believe God is good, and that He wants to be good to you? Put your faith in Him and enter His rest.

W
orrying is totally useless. I was a worrier, so I know what a stronghold it can become in our lives. I also know that it is a bad habit that is not easily broken, but since all things are possible with God, then it is possible for us to live free from worry, anxiety, and fear. If you are willing to give up worrying, then you will be able to enter into an attitude of celebration. You can trust God and enjoy life while He solves your problems.

Nothing is outside of God’s control, so in reality there is nothing to worry about. When we begin to look at worry in a realistic manner, we see how totally useless it is. Our minds revolve endlessly around and around a problem, searching for answers that only God has. We may ponder a thing and ask God for wisdom, but we do not have God’s permission to worry. Pondering a thing in God is peaceful, but worrying can be torment. When we worry, we torment ourselves! We can pray and ask God to help us not to worry, but ultimately we must choose to put our thoughts on something other than our problems. A refusal to worry is proof that we trust God and it releases Him to go to work on our behalf.

I wonder how much of our mental time is spent worrying, reasoning, and fearing—possibly more than is spent on anything else. Instead of meditating on our problems, let’s choose to meditate on the “alls” of God. He says you can cast
“… [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you…”
(1 Pet. 5:7). Let us realize how unlimited His power is and trust Him to do what we cannot do.

W
hen we give God our all, we are actually saying to Him,
“God, Your will be done and not mine.”
It is the only way we can live with our soul at rest. Otherwise, we are always wrestling with something that is not working out the way we want.

The apostle Paul begged those he taught to dedicate
all
of their members and faculties to God for His will and use (see Rom. 12:1). If we refuse to do that, God will find a submitted vessel (someone else) to work through, and we will miss out on God’s best for us.

Think about Noah. Why did God choose Noah and his family to be saved in the ark during the flood? What was so special about this one man? The Bible says that Noah did according to
all
God commanded him. Maybe Noah wasn’t the first person God asked to build the ark, but he was the one willing to give God his
all
. And Noah was richly blessed because of his trust in God. I doubt that Noah understood what God was asking him to do when He required him to build an ark for an upcoming flood. Noah must have been the laughingstock of his region. I am sure that his obedience hurt his reputation with men. Are you willing to obey God if your obedience is likely to hurt your reputation?