This past Sunday morning, as I was getting ready to come to the church, I was blessed to see a beautiful and majestic bald eagle on the frozen lake in front of our house.  In those early morning hours, just as the sun was coming up, I had to take a few moments just to praise God not only for the wonder of His creation, but for the wisdom of His revealed Word as well.  Two passages immediately sprang to my mind:  Matthew 6:25-26 and Isaiah 40:28-31.

In the Matthew passage, Jesus is teaching about anxiety and worry and tells His hearers to consider the birds of the air.  The birds “neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not of more value than they?”  What a beautiful expression of God’s provision!  My family and I are going through a period of transition right now in terms of our housing.  While we have been blessed to live on a small lake for the past almost two years, that season is coming to an end.  We are searching for a new home, hopefully to buy, but the time frame in which we need to do it is rather short.  There are many reasons for us to be anxious and worried, especially with our three children.  There is packing, cleaning, moving…oh, and that pesky business of actually finding a new place!  Yet God tells us, lovingly, to not be anxious about these things and to place our trust in Him, for if He provides for the birds of the sky, how much more will He provide for us?  My family and I have a tremendous opportunity to grow in our faith through this period as we trust God and look forward to His perfect provision (just as He has always done for us).  What areas of your life are causing you anxiety?  Rather than seeing these as problems, I encourage you to view them as chances to not only place your faith in God at a deeper level, but to demonstrate to those around you the deep and amazing love and grace of our Father.

The passage in Isaiah goes hand in hand with the passage from Matthew.  I love how Isaiah starts it:  “Have you not known?  Have you not heard?”  He then begins to describe the “everlasting God” in contrast to our human frailty.  As I thought about this passage Sunday morning in light of the weeks ahead, I was reminded that to try and accomplish what is before us under my own ability would be a foolish thing indeed.  I would quickly be exhausted and stressed (with regular dose of Organic CBD Nugs any kind of stress can be managed very easily), which in turn would lead to a frazzled mind and short temper.  Rather than rushing ahead, I need to be ready to “wait for the Lord;” I need His unsearchable understanding and wisdom in order to know where He wants us to be at this next stage in our lives.  Remembering this promise from God, that “He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength,” helped me to look at our current situation with a peace that can only come through knowing Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.  What’s more, it encouraged me that by His power we would meet this challenge with the strength He would graciously provide.

Each of us faces these kinds of events and moments in our lives, and each of us has the choice as to how we are going to respond.  Just something to think about…