trust

Trusting the Engineer

/ pastorpete51 / 5 Comments

Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7 ESV

Worrying over our grandchildren’s relationship with Jesus has been a recurring theme for me lately. Now I can hardly believe that I first wrote that opening line two years ago. Things with our grandchildren have gotten easier with some and harder with others. Some days it feels as if our hearts are being pulling in opposite directions, and I need that peace that is waaaaay beyond anything I can understand sometimes! When they were small, everything seemed pretty simple. We took them to church; prayed with them and made sure they had plenty of cookies. But now they are older, some days it feels as if I am slogging through a mud bog trying to communicate even the basics of what it means to be a Christian. As I tossed and turned through another middle of the night worry the Holy Spirit tapped me on the shoulder and reminded me that I was not alone. I was forgetting that ultimately that job is His and that He loves them way more than I do. It is hard to trust God with people who are the closest to us. Yielding control over our spouse, a child a grandchild or a friend means letting God take over. Back in 2005 Carrie Underwood recorded a song called, “Jesus Take the Wheel!” and its message was exactly what we need in our most anxious moments. We need to let go of our grip so that God can steer. Jesus won’t just rip the steering wheel away. He will allow us as many nights as we wish to toss and turn. But when we are worn out with worry and fed up with fear God is waiting and even longing for us to trust that He knows how to fix things better than we do. Only He has the strength to carry our worries and has promised a peace that stretches from our anxious hour all the way to heaven!

When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer!  - Corrie Ten Boom
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Consider

/ pastorpete51 / 6 Comments

And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Matthew 6:28-29 ESV

One of the earliest memories I have of mom is her typing furiously on her Royal typewriter at the kitchen table. The melody of the tapping keys, punctuated by “ding” at the end of each line often, soothed me to sleep when I lay down for naps. Whenever mom wrote another book, she first began with research, which I think she liked the best. Being a Sci-Fi writer, she wanted to make sure her background on the people, planets and space travel actually fit with real science. In one of her books there were people who got around the way bats do, by their hearing. So, she studied braille, talked with blind people and asked them a million questions. Then after months of brainstorming, researching and outlining she began the rough draft with pen and paper. Because mom never had an office, the tall stacks of paper sat in piles on end tables, her nightstand or any handy flat surface in the house. Then came the second draft, on a thin cheap paper called onion skin. The wonderful nature of onion skin is that any attempt at erasure invariably leaves a hole in the page! This, mom meticulously edited, crossing off paragraphs here and there and filling the margins with notes accompanied by circles and arrows. Finally, after months of work, she was ready to break out the higher quality bond paper and begin her finished manuscript. The typing on the final was slower and mistakes were gently erased, with the correct letter carefully typed over the spot. Yet even after all the work that went into her manuscript, the journey from an idea to a book was not over. I still remember the day when she received the acceptance letter for her first book. You would think this might be a time of celebration, but far from it. The publisher was ready to publish the book only on the condition that she cut the book down from 500 to 250 pages. Mom burst into angry tears, shouting various things about the editor and then sat down and began her work again. Thinking back, I am amazed how anyone wanted to be a writer!

Photo by Tetyana Kovyrina on Pexels.com

In today’s world of word processing that cuts and pastes and autocorrects while smoothly and silently generating text, we move too quickly. We breeze through thousands of words, without taking time to consider the details. When Jesus tells us to consider the lilies of the field, He is saying more than just, “Don’t worry be happy!” He is telling us “Slow down enough to notice the lilies.”  Instead, we speed ahead, forgetting that God when spoke lilies into existence, He didn’t hurry. He carefully designed their root system and leaves and, chose the color of the blossom for every variety. Yet we rush past what God has given us, not only in His creation but in the lives of the people around us. He is commanding us to slow down, so we can see the beauty of people and flowers, noticing every detail and hovering like a hummingbird, appreciating its sweetness. Only then can the peace of God will flow into our minds as we consider, linger and trust that God has every detail of every day under His amazing and loving control!

Call 9-1-1!

/ pastorpete51 / 3 Comments 
My enemies trample on me all day long, for many attack me proudly. When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me? 
Psalm 56:3-4 ESV

We had just started dinner, when we were interrupted by the all too familiar sound of a crash. “Call 9-1-1!” I shouted as I headed for the front door to get a better look. Because we lived on one of the main avenues near the center of our city, car accidents in front of our house happened regularly. We called so often that we knew the drill. “This is 911. Where is your emergency?” the operator would ask. In the Bible, Psalm 56 is God’s 9-1-1 number. Though I have often heard that one of the most repeated commands in the Bible is, “Do not be afraid.” I must confess that I am often still afraid. What I need is more than just a command to stop. I need to learn how, and today’s verse encourages me because it tells me I am not alone. David: the giant killer, who also killed a lion with his bare hands and who wrote most of the Psalms, was just like me. I love how he doesn’t mince words. He says straight up that, he is afraid – but – in his fearful moments he dials Heaven’s 9-1-1 number and begins to tell God about it! He says, “Help me, Lord! I am having a crisis here!” and we can do the same. When we dialed 9-1-1 in emergencies back home, we didn’t know who would pick up the phone, we would never get to meet that person or even know their name. But when we dial Heaven’s 9-1-1 number, we know who is picking up on the other end and we can trust that He won’t hang up. God will answer the call. He will listen to our emergency and He will come. Where is your emergency today? It’s time to pick up the phone and dial 9-1-1!