God Is Already There

I was listening to a podcast today.

The preacher was talking about worrying and he told a story.

The story was about a rat on a plane. The pilot had taken the plane well into the air, not knowing a rat was in a part of the plane. As he was flying along, he could hear the rat gnawing at the wires.

He got to thinking, if the rat kept it up, the plane could go down. He knew that the rat couldn't survive on little oxygen in higher altitudes, so he flew the plane up to about 25,000 feet. He eventually heard the gnawing stop, knowing the rat had died from lack of oxygen and he safely landed the plane at its destination.

The preacher explained that worry is a lot like that rat- If you let it keep gnawing away, eating at the wires of your life, it's eventually going to bring you down (like it did for me).

But if you keep going higher, to God, and bringing all of your anxieties and worries to him (1 Peter 5:7), He will gladly kill off all of the worries and allow you to fly freely.  The more you keep cruising along, the worse the "rat" is going to get, and you're eventually going to be taken down.

But thankfully, we have a God who doesn't give air to the rat- who chokes it and makes it not a problem.

In a conversation I had with a Professor a while back, who shared with me something personal about his life, I said "Do you have to do that every day for the rest of your life?" And he said "How am I supposed to know. I'm not God. I only think about getting through today."

That's exactly right. How much peace and contentment I have been losing out on for fear of what the future could bring. I know I have said before that I am going to take things one day at a time, but, it really hasn't worked. Worry has always been the victor.

Someone just the other day told me, "Don't worry about tomorrow because God is already there."

God holds tomorrow, and God holds my hand.

I've been thinking long and hard about what to give up for Lent this year.

I think I'll give up worrying. God already has tomorrow and God already has my hand, and that's enough for me.