Gifts and Gratitudes - a 5-Day Reading Planഉദാഹരണം

Worry can be my natural posture—the way I curl my toes up; how I angle my jaw, braced, brows chiseled with lines of distrust; how I don’t fold my hands in prayer, but rather weld them into tight fists of control.

Worry can be the facade of taking action when prayer really is. And when I express that I’m stressed, is it really my attempt to prove how indispensable I am? Or does disguising my deep fears and worries as stress seem braver somehow?

Trust is the antithesis of stress. An untroubled heart relaxes, trusts, and leans assured into His ever-dependable arms. “Oh, the joys of those who trust the Lord” (Psalm 40:4 NLT). But how to learn trust like that?

I can’t fill with joy until I learn how to trust: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow” (Romans 15:13, emphasis added). The full life, the one that authentically sits fully with all the nuanced and complicated emotions of life, and still makes space for joy and peace, happens only as the soul comes to more fully trust.

And—if trust must be earned, hasn’t God unequivocally earned all our trust with the cross’s bark on the raw wounds, the thorns pressed into the brow, your very name on His cracked lips? How will He not also graciously give us all things He sovereignly deems best and right? He’s already given the incomprehensible—all of Himself. There is deep heartache in this busted and broken world, and still, there’s more good beyond just this world: if He’s given us the greatest and truest good of Himself—is there any eternal good we need that a good God would withhold?

Ultimately, the counting of all blessings is summed up in One: Christ, our Crossbeam, who is the beam that holds us and all things, together.

It’s all Christ. Every moment, every event, every happening.

It’s all in Christ, and in Christ, we are always eternally soul-safe.

Prayer

Lord, cause me to take a deep breath right now and really trust in my Savior—that He truly saves. Thank You, Lord; in my Savior, I am always soul-safe.