My husband and I belong to a small group in our church. They are all absolutely wonderful, funny, and loving people. We usually play a game, converse about a Bible topic, and close with prayer for each other. During this COVID-19 season, we are using Zoom to meet, and just recently started talking about the book of Mark in the Bible. We are using a video series, and the instructor in the video had a very energetic delivery. He was standing in the Jordan River, and speaking about Jesus’ baptism. He was asking us to realize how significant it was that God came to Earth for us.
He was so passionate about this, and rightly so. For Jesus to leave the throne, come to Earth, live a poor and hard life, and die willingly on a cross, just so I would not perish, is astounding. Most of us probably won’t even leave our house to go help someone move or clean their air-conditioned house. At the end of the video, our group leader asked us of our opinion on the delivery and the topic of the video. I responded saying that thinking of what Jesus did and what it meant for my life led me to think, “why do things matter?”
Let me go deeper into this before you might think that I am crazier than I really am. I want to bring in another message recently delivered by our pastor, where he addressed worry. Worry exposes our plans and their true importance to us. When life is normal, we may not think of certain things like our health or future. When life is a havoc, we stop taking the important things for granted and fear that we might not have them. Worry shows our priorities.
In a time where the world is temporarily shut down, we are all affected. We are very grateful that our family is healthy, but we still have been personally affected. I really have no clue what tomorrow might bring, and how it will change our lives. It is such a weird feeling because the options seem limited in the uncertain future, where no one knows what awaits us on the other end and how the world will turn back on.
But what does it matter? My hope and trust is in God. I am not the manager of my life; I am just the performer. I can plan and prepare, but I cannot determine my future. It is out of everyone’s hands. No person has power over the next moment. So I remind myself that if God allowed it, He will walk me through it, and I breathe. Sometimes I breathe out tears, sometimes I breathe out hope, and sometimes I just try to breathe. Tomorrow is going to come anyway. There is no point in being scared of it. I will, in Jesus fashion, take it one day at a time, and continue resting in the one whose ways are much higher than mine.
Going back to the original question, why do little things that don’t carry much importance, have such a great hold on us? Our perspective is distorted into the short run and not the long run. Even the things that are important, like family and the people around us, should not keep us in fear. In the long run, our trust will show us our rewards. I trust that God has every little thing, from the lilies of the field to the hair on my head (which is extremely abundant), as well as the big things, in His hands. If He does, and promises me that He will be in and at the end of my path, I just need to breathe and take the next obvious step.
Thriving in Simplicity 