Going through difficult times can teach us to do these two things: 1) Trust God more because we’ve experienced His faithfulness; or 2) Worry, think, and incessantly talk about the ‘what ifs’ in life. And there are lots of them to think about, because the future rests in God’s hands and not ours. It’s possible for a thing to seem much bigger to us than it really is. That’s the essence of worry. It’s like a snowball; it starts small, but as you roll it over and over in your mind, it becomes bigger and bigger until it has the potential to bury you. The answer is to ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding’ (Proverbs 3:5 NKJV). First we need to fill our hearts with God’s Word. Then develop the habit of letting what’s in our hearts be more real to us than what we see, think, or feel. We can choose to think about what God can do instead of what we cannot do. If we obsess about the difficulty of a situation, we’ll end up in despair and feel trapped by it. When that happens, it’s easy to panic and begin to do things that can make the problem worse. Instead, ‘Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.’ The word ‘sustain’ means to strengthen, support, and hold us up. God might not take us out of a difficult situation immediately, but His sustaining grace will bring us through it. So today, give your problem to God.
