Think with me about a time when you felt like you needed to control everything or your life would just fall apart. When every little detail had to be your call in order for things to work out exactly the way you want them to. When the only person you trust to get things done is yourself. I know we have all been there. And tell me this - how incredibly stressful was that? It should have been immensely, because we as humans were not meant to bear the weight of the world on our shoulders. There is so little in our lives that we were intended to control, so when we take on more than we were made to it becomes an overwhelming burden. It also reveals that we are not trusting the One that deserves it to take care of all of those things. This happened to me just recently, so let me share my story.
I have mentioned this in previous posts, but a few months back I was laid off from my job, and my husband also didn’t have a job at the time. Thankfully, the Lord blessed our lives by allowing the time of both of us being unemployed to be very short, and within two weeks we both had jobs. I returned to the company I had worked for previously in a new role. It was a little bit of a different role than I have done before, so I was a little nervous to take it on. I felt like it was pushing me outside of my comfort zone to learn/develop skills I had not previously thought I had/thought I was weak in. But with all of that, I felt the pressure to be completely perfect at this job. The team I am on is a newer team, so responsibilities are still being determined, so the work can be a little slow some days. This fact caused me a lot of worry -
“Are they going to think that my position is not valuable and let me go?”
“Of the two of us I bring in the larger pay check, so if I lose this job, how are we going to pay our bills?”
“With the money we currently bring in we live pretty comfortably, if I lose this job that will all go away, so I have to make sure that I do whatever it takes to not be let go”
These thoughts weighed on me for weeks. I was crumbling under the pressure and paranoia that I would at any moment be let go from my job. However, I was forgetting a few important things. For one, the company I am at now wanted me to come back, so they see value in me already as an employee. All I need to do is show up every day and do my best, and show that I am a team player and want to help with anything I can. No one wants to get rid of an employee who says, “Please give me more work”! Especially not in this hiring climate. For two, I was forgetting that our livelihood was not fully dependent on me keeping this job. God blessed me with this job when he put me in it, and if he decides to take it away he will provide for us, just like he did before. I was so focused on keeping the money flowing in that I forgot what my duty as a child of God was at my job everyday, which is to serve the Lord through my work. “Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, ‘I will never fail you. I will never abandon you’” (Hebrews 13:5). This piece of Scripture right here is what I needed to put at the forefront of my mind.
My lesson through all of this was that God will provide, and I do not have to keep everything so tightly under my control for fear of losing it. If I trust in him with all my heart, follow in his ways, and try to live for him everyday he will always give me everything I need. “And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others” (2 Corinthians 9:8). Money should never be the thing we are most focused on. Yes, it is important to manage it well and to make smart financial decisions. That is one of the things that is in our control. However, letting the fear of losing your income paralyze you is not the right way to respond.
The correct way to respond is this: “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’. These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need” (Matthew 6:31-33). This is the thing we should be focused on as we walk into each day. It can be scary to not know what comes next or not be able to know for sure that you will always be comfortable, but that’s not what this life is all about. That is not where we will find our peace. We need to have full trust that our God will provide for us no matter what season he has us walking through. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).
The Lord has proven over and over that he will meet every one of my true needs (my most recent experience being one of the many examples), so why do I, over and over again, not trust in his providence?
Are you walking through a season right now where you feel like you have to have everything under control? Are you feeling crushed by the weight of this burden? Are you so focused on keeping your life exactly the way it is that you lose sight of trusting our faithful heavenly Father? Join me as I work towards letting those things go, and be reminded and comforted that our God knows every single one of our needs, and will always take care of us. No matter the season or circumstance he has you in, he will always provide.
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