Flying from Dallas on Wednesday I picked up book in the airport bookstore, "Who Moved My Cheese?".
The book cover describes it as: "an amusing and enlightening story of four characters who live in a "Maze" and look for "Cheese" to nourish them and make them happy. Cheese is a metaphor for what you want to have in life - whether it is a good job, a loving relationship, money, a possession, health or spiritual peace of mind."
The problem: the Cheese is not guaranteed! Someone can move your cheese at any moment ... a layoff at work, a broken relationship, a stock market crash, a dumb investment, a cancer diagnosis, a sense of emptiness.
There is a question in the book that rocked me.
"What would you do if you were not afraid?"
Pause. Think through the question. What would you do? Would you start a business? Would you ask someone's forgiveness? Would you muster the courage to speak to a co-worker about Christ? Would you go to the doctor for a physical?
Are you afraid? I am. There are many things I am afraid of. Here are a couple of observations I've thought through since reading the book:
1. 80% of what I worry about will NEVER happen
2. Most of what WILL happen I cannot control
3. Worry is stealing my creativity
4. Worry keeps me from living today
5. Worry makes it harder to hear God
I am working to give this to God. We may not know what the future holds but we know Who holds the future. He will not give us more than we can bear. He will not allow our cheese to move without providing something else. He asks us to trust Him and not be afraid.
Pause. Think through these Scriptures. Pray them to God and give Him what concerns you today.
Deuteronomy 31
6 Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Hebrews 13
5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” 6 So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper;
I will not be afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?”
They can only move the cheese!
Take your worry list to our Father ... He cares ... He is our helper!
DevoLink: Devotions to help you Link with God.
Good to see you back up and running. Good thoughts. I feel like this was another affirmation of what God has been saying to me about casting my cares to Him. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI posted before, but it didn't show up, so hopefully, round 2 works better. It is great to see you back!
ReplyDeleteI was beginning to think you were gone for good.
This was really a blessing for me today, as it confirmed something God keeps telling me. In your last sentence, you wrote about taking your worry list to our Father. I have so much trouble doing this, alternately because of vanity and shame, which ultimately leads to pride on either side.
I tend to feel like a failure when I need help. Telling God "I can't do it", not just "on my own" but simply I can't do it", period. That is hard. Dying to my self is a big one for me.
Thanks for the encouraging words.
Jeffrey - great to hear from you. Thanks for your honesty. I posted both your comments because I figure few people know you by your user name and more importantly, what you have to share strikes at the core of all of us.
ReplyDeleteIt is difficult to admit fear and inability. It is an important thing though. It is the path that was required for us to meet Jesus in the first place and it remains the path to stay close to Him. Those that recognize and admit that they are "poor" in spirit are they that meet the Savior!
Those that continue to walk in this way find spiritual wholeness.
"Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, SO WALK in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude." Colossians 2:6-7
Well said. I accomplish little of significance when I try to live in the Spirit but walk by the flesh. I am not strong and only when I realize that is when I can receive His truth:
ReplyDelete“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
I found your comment on fear most apt. We are planning out the Green family annual family vacation, and this year we are going to Yellowstone National Park. In trying to talk up the family vaca, I tell my daughter (aged nine) that we will be camping in the caldera of a volcano this year.
ReplyDeleteSeveral days later, my daughter tells me in no uncertain terms that she does not want to go to Yellowstone, because volcanos are dangerous because we would be burned by the molten rock and lava flows. I guess my daughter researched volcanos and learned all about eruptions. She also probably saw some dramatic video clips from Hawaii.
I allayed my daughter's fears and told her that Yellowstone is dormant, but the volcanic nature of Yellowstone makes it interesting.
In reflecting on that interaction, I sometimes wonder what my heavenly father thinks about my fears. Do they seem as irrational to Him as my daughter's fears of Yellowstone?
God's answer to both my daughter's and my fears is found in Psalm 46
God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.