Mindful Monday Devotional -The Answer to Anxiety Rejoices in God’s Plans

Mindful Monday Devotional - Rejoice in God's plans

 

It seems like most people I know anymore are on some form of antidepressant.  I don’t remember that at all when I was growing up.  I heard of the occasional “nerve pill”, but that was only when someone was on the verge of a nervous breakdown or close.  It really feels like the closer we get to the return of the Lord, the more anxious the world is getting.  With good reason!  It’s just fulfilling prophecy about the end times.  People will turn against each other, their hearts will wax cold, and so on and so on.

But the Christian shouldn’t allow the feeling of anxiety to overtake us.  We of all people have reason for hope and to trust that everything that happens in our lives are a part of God’s ultimate plan.  It may not seem like it at the moment, but I know (for me) we can always look back and see God’s hand in the most worry-fraught times of our lives.

I read this in my YouVersion devotional this week.

 

 

 

 

The Answer to Anxiety Rejoices in God’s Plans

The Bible is clear that God’s people deal with anxiety. The Psalmist acknowledges that even when the Lord is your hope, the cares will still be many! All through Psalms and Proverbs there are acknowledgments that God’s people know what it is to have cares in our hearts.

It is humility that brings hope to the anxious heart, and this humility that brings relief from anxiety rests in God’s gracious and good plans.

Can you be confident that He will restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you?

God is described by Peter as the God of all grace. I don’t deserve for the Lord to take care of me in such a way that, at all times, it is something good that is being worked out in the details of my life.

And yet that is what He does.

Because He is gracious and good, I can have this confidence – whatever suffering I am going through is temporary. Even if it is for a lifetime, it is still a little while.

What awaits us is eternal glory in Christ – who will Himself restore us, confirm us, strengthen us and establish us.

The Old Testament book of Job tells us of a man who lost everything. We know that the Lord was using his faithfulness to demonstrate to Satan that Job’s reverence for the Lord wasn’t dependent on the things in his life that he had been given.

We read about this purpose of God’s in Job’s life, but Job lived it – he didn’t have the book of Job to tell him of the things that we know by reading in Scripture.

Amazingly, due to God’s work in his heart, he was able to say that “the Lord gives and the Lord takes away” – but “blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job was able to say, “I trust Him.”

You humble yourself when you acknowledge God’s sovereignty and rejoice in it. You must be willing to admit that He has the power and the right to do what He will do. Whether this looks like giving or taking away in your life, you must be willing to say this to Him with a heart of praise.

This is not fatalism or resignation, but praise.

We have not humbled ourselves until God’s sovereignty is sweet to us.

Do you rejoice in the knowledge that you are not in control, but He is?

Will you humble yourself by taking all those things represented in the word anxieties, bag them up, and cast them onto Him, knowing that He cares for you?

“When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.” –Psalms 94:19 ESV

“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!”  –Psalms 139:23 ESV

“Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.”  –Proverbs 12:25 ESV

“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.”  –1 Peter 5:10‭-‬11 ESV

“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.”  –1 Peter 5:10‭-‬11 ESV

“And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” –Job 1:8 ESV

“And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.”  –Job 2:3 ESV

“And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord .”  –Job 1:21 ESV

“Though he slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face.”  –Job 13:15 ESV

* For this and other devotionals, check out Richard’s book here on Amazon —>

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