Uncertainty

I am encouraged and motivated to trust God with the uncertainties of life just now. How did I come to that? Two reasons: One is the sermon Pastor Vargas gave last Sunday at our church on Philippians 4. You know the familiar passage we often read but don't put into practise? "Don't worry about anything, pray about everything." Here are his main points: 1) Take your worries and turn them into prayers. 2) Set your mind on positive truth (see Phil 3:8 which tells us the kinds of things we are to think about. Worry is negative meditation.) 3) Surrender. If it's in your hand, it means it's not in God's hand. Surrender doesn't mean giving up, it means releasing control. Number three is definitely the biggie. Surrender means that I quit praying for what I want and dictating to God how He needs to act, and start seeking Him for who He is and letting Him do what He does best - MY BEST.

My second reason for ability to trust God with uncertainty, at least at this moment, comes from the insites and encouragement of a book called "In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day." There's so much good stuff in it, I can't begin to summarize. But here a few goodies:

1. Opportunities often look like insurmountable obstacles.
2. Someday we may be as grateful for the bad things as the good things, because the bad things helped prepare us for the good things.
3. We should stop asking God to get us out of difficult circumstances and start asking HIm what He wants us to get out of those difficult circumstances.
4. Prayer is less about changing our circumstances and more about changing our perspective.
5. Worship is forgetting about what's wrong with you and remembering what's right with God.
6. Stop spending all your energy making plans for God, and start seeking God.
7. Your explanations are more important that your experiences. While you can't control your experiences, you can control your explanations.

I could go on and on and I'm only half way through the book! Anyway, for this moment I am okay with uncertainty. As long as I can keep turning my worries into prayers and surrendering control to God, I may be able to remain okay. How are you doing today?