anxious

18
Oct
2023

Who Do You Worship?

“The crucible is for silver and the furnace is for gold,

And the Lord tests the hearts.”

Proverbs 17:3

 

We live in a day of imitation and knock-offs.  I saw my daughter last week-end and she had a bag that said “The Tote Bag” on it. I asked her what the story was behind it. She doesn’t normally carry a bag around with her. She said that it was the in thing now. She did admit that hers was an imitation because it didn’t have the designer’s name on it.

How do we know if something is imitation or a knock-off? There is usually something that will give us a clue that something is not the genuine thing. Our verse from Proverbs starts out by helping us to understand how we can identify pure silver and pure gold. It has to go through a test. The test is fire.

The crucible is a vessel in a refining fire, a place where precious substances are tested, purified, and strengthened. The silver is tested in the fire to see if it truly is silver, and then as the silver is heated all of the impurities are melted out of the pure silver. The same thing happens for gold. As the gold is heated, the impurities are melted off and all that is left is the gold.

Our lives are no different. We all experience trials, challenges, difficulties, circumstances, events, or a stimuli in our lives. God allows these events to happen in our lives reveal what is in our hearts. These trials are meant to test us to see what is truly in our hearts.

There are really only 2 responses in our lives when a circumstance happens. There may seem to be a wide variety of responses, but in the end each and every response boils down to 2 different responses.

  1. We worship God and trust in His sovereignty. When we do this we will experience peace, hope, and joy even though we don’t understand what is happening because we are trusting in God’s perfect plan. As the trials are happening in our lives and we choose to trust God, the things in our lives that are not important or that are getting in the way of us worshipping God will slowly come to the surface and we can choose to surrender those to God so that we are more like Christ or we can choose to hold onto those things, which would put us into the 2nd
  2. We worship ourselves. Now I know that no one would ever say that they worship themselves. That would be preposterous. We might say of someone else though that they are proud or selfish. Who do you think they are worshipping as a proud and selfish person? What does this look like in the crucible, the test, the furnace, the fire, the challenge, the trial? The person may say or think things like, “What did I do to deserve this?” “This isn’t fair.” “What was God thinking?” These people become devastated by the tests that come into their lives. They can’t get out of bed because life just isn’t fair. They can’t do their normal daily responsibilities of life because they are so distraught by the trial in their lives. They are so self-focused that every little thing in life that happens pushes them over the edge. They are depressed or anxious or full of fear or angry because the trial that came into their life is not how they planned their life, and this thing is out of their control. This test that God sent is revealing exactly what is in the person’s heart. It is revealing who they worship.

So there question is who are you worshipping? If you are not sure who you are worshipping, check your responses to the trials that happen in your life. Do you become angry, depressed, anxious, or full of fear when life gets hard? Or do you seek the Lord in the midst of a trial and trust in His providential care over your life, no matter how hard the test is?

Is it wrong to go to the Lord and pour out your heart to Him when life gets hard? No, it isn’t. We need to walk in faith and trust in God, not in doubt, fear, anger, despair or anxiety.

Who do you worship? As you go through trials, the genuineness of your faith will be revealed and demonstrate who you are worshipping. What does the crucible reveal about the genuineness of your worship?

Posted by ddykema5@gmail.com in The Seasons of Motherhood, 0 comments
20
May
2020

Nothing

During this time of quarantine, there is conjecture by all of us. What if this happens or what if that happens? What if I get sick? What if I lose my job and cannot pay my mortgage? What if all the stores run out of toilet paper? What if we will never be able to go to a sporting event again? What if life never returns to the normal we knew before Covid-19 hit?

Have you thought all of these thoughts and considered all these things? I think many of us have thought these things, been worried about these things, and maybe even lost sleep over these questions.

I remember before 9/11 what things used to be like. Do you? I remember flying with my 2 oldest daughters by myself to visit my parents. One of them was young enough to sit on my lap and the other sat in a car seat on the plane. On the return trip, my dad came on the plane and helped install the car seat for me. Today, he would not have even been able to help me to the gate. We have adapted to these changes and now consider them common place. Those of us old enough remember life before, but we have adapted and become accustomed to the new post 9/11 normal.

So that same thing will happen to us with this crises. As things are beginning to slowly open up and life is slowly returning to “normal” we will see changes. As this is happening, will it do us any good to be anxious for the “what ifs?”

One of the verses that most of us have memorized or are familiar with is Philippians 4:6.

 

“Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication

with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

 

I like to sing. I know lines of songs, but not always the whole song. There may be a word that I hear that reminds of a song and so it prompts me to break out into song, even if I only know one line to the song. I also like to make up songs. For some reason I made up a little ditty, “Nothing plus nothing equals nothing.” And I just repeat those same words. So what does the word nothing mean? Well if you are trying to pour some water into nothing it would spill all over the floor. If you tried to drive nothing you would look ridiculous. If you tried to wear nothing, you would look like the Emperor who wore no clothes.

Nothing is nothing. What does God tell us? To be anxious for nothing. When we start living in “what if” land, is it reality? Is it an actual event or is it nothing? “What if” is not actually anything, it is nothing. So why do we worry about the “what ifs” when they are not a present reality, but rather not a thing (NOTHING).

So as situations begin to happen in our lives, what is it we are supposed to do?

First, do not be anxious about what has not yet happened because it is nothing. Who says it is going to happen? Why are you worrying about something that has not even happened yet? It might not even happen.

Second, when something does happen we must pray and thank God for what has happened and presents our request to God.

Would we ask our friends, spouse, parents, etc. “I need something, but I don’t know what it is?” We go to someone with a specific request. So we must treat God with that same type of request.

Here is my challenge for you. Take life one day at a time. We must plan, but do not be anxious about all the “what ifs” all the “nothings.”

Remember lamentations 3:22, 23 “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, hi mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

God’s mercy is what we need each day. I wrote a post about this a few weeks ago. http://www.dannadykema.com/new-morning-mercies/

Be anxious for nothing. Remember God’s mercy is new for us each and every day to help us handle the actual problem that comes our way rather than the fabricated one we tend to make up in our minds.

Posted by ddykema5@gmail.com in The Seasons of Motherhood, 0 comments
06
May
2020

New Morning Mercies

Are you feeling discouraged over the turmoil and mixed messages we are receving regarding this Covid-19 virus and all the restrictions? We here in Michigan still have a few more weeks for our stay at home order. Now that the weather is nicer, it is harder for people to stay home, plus they have been staying home for seven weeks now. I don’t think staying at home is the worst thing for some people. For some people, the worst thing is the question of their job. Will there be a job for them to have once this is all finished. Will their unemployment run out before they go back to work? There are so many variables that some do not have the answers for.

As I was laying down for my Sunday afternoon nap, I was thanking the Lord for who He is. He is compassionate, loving, and full of grace. Then I thanked Him for His mercies “that are new every morning.” (Lamentations 3: 22, 23).  As I was drifting off to sleep, I thought “why is it that the only attribute of God that says that it is new every morning is His mercy?”

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.” (Lamentations 3:22).

“…according to the riches of His grace. Which He lavished on us…” (Ephesians 1: 8, 9)

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you…” (II Peter 3:9).

God’s love, His grace, and His patience are steadfast. They do not change, but God’s mercy is new every morning.

God’s mercy is new every morning not because of who God is, but because of who we are.

If we ponder for a minute the definition of mercy-God NOT giving us what we deserve-we realize that God’s mercy being new every morning has more to do with us.

It is not that yesterday’s mercies were bad or inadequate, rather it is that yesterday’s mercies were for yesterday’s troubles. Today’s mercies are for today’s troubles.

We have a tendency to look at the “what if’s” of tomorrow and try to solve those problems today. Those are tomorrow’s troubles not todays and you do not have the mercy that you need for the troubles of tomorrow.

Does that mean that we should not plan? Does that mean we should not prepare for what will come tomorrow? Absolutely not. We should plan for tomorrow and prepare for tomorrow. The farmer must prepare in the spring to harvest his crop in the fall, but he cannot bring the “what ifs” of tomorrow into today. He must plant his crop in the spring. He cannot be worried about if there will be enough rain or too much rain. That is tomorrow’s trouble and that trouble will have a fresh dose of mercy for that day.

What are you worried about? Whether you will get back to work before your unemployment runs out? Whether you will get sick with Covid-19? Whether this home restriction will ever end?

Those are tomorrow’s troubles and we should let the mercy that God will give us tomorrow take care of the trouble that will come tomorrow.

“Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life what you will eat or what you will drink nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and body more than clothing? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” (Matthew 6:25, 27).

If you think about tomorrow, will worrying put food on your table? Will being anxious fix that troubled relationship? Will worrying cause you to have clothes to wear? Will being anxious add one hour to the end of your life?

God’s mercies are new every morning. If you get down to your last meal in the refrigerator, God will give you the mercy for that day when it comes. Why worry about it today? If your unemployment runs out, God will give you the mercy in that day that you need for that struggle.

Remember:

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning, great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations3:22, 23)

Posted by ddykema5@gmail.com in The Seasons of Motherhood, 4 comments