But I decided to write
about because, who am I fooling? I need
the Lord’s grace day by day as much as you do, and this is one area in which he
is revealing it to me. So maybe I can be an encouragement to you if you are
working through a similar situation.
Matthew 6:33-34
33 But
seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will
be added to you.
34 “Therefore
do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.
Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
That can be a tough
passage to live by. Placing our devotion
to God over our devotion to take care of our physical needs seems
backwards. When I am hungry, I go to the
fridge, open it up, pull out something to eat, and close it, not thinking much
about what just happened.
But what happens when
the fridge is empty and the cupboards are bare?
I go into crisis mode and begin to find a way to take care of my needs
and my family needs. I get anxious and I
begin to look for a way to fix the situation, instead of moving forward in life,
seeking the Kingdom of God and trusting that all my needs will be given to me
according to God’s plan.
Being a fairly young
pastor, the Lord has given me some great opportunities to work out this area of
weakness in my life: that is to fully trust in him to provide for all of my needs. Lately, as the church I am pastoring hits a
small financial setback, I have been stressing over the bills that have to be
paid at the church, and the paychecks that have to go out at the end of the
month. This anxiety has begun to consume
my mind and my thoughts, and it had begun to consume my prayer life. I thought and prayed, “Lord, I am simply
doing what you called me to do, you wouldn’t leave us out to dry would you? Why then are you allowing us to struggle
right now with our finances at the church?”
His answer was hard to swallow, but a reminder to seek first His kingdom
and all these things will be added unto me and the church. He said, “Greg, my desire is for you to pray
for and care for souls as much as you pray for and care about paying
bills. You have it backwards. Seek me first, and my Kingdom, and the other
stuff will come as I see fit.” He
continued graciously chastising me, “Greg if you care half as much about people
becoming my disciples as you did about paying bills, you might begin to get
somewhere with the church.”
As he spoke that to me,
my conscience was pierced with the guilt of my sin, as I realized that I was
stressing over things I really had no control over to begin with, things that
belonged to God. This stress was taking
up to much room in my mind, leaving very little energy to do the thing that I
was called to do, seek God’s Kingdom first.
When we put God’s
Kingdom over the consuming fear and anxiety of your physical needs, two things
happen.
1.
We begin to shift our
focus off of us and our needs to others and their needs. When I focus on God’s desire for me to build
his Kingdom, then my mind doesn’t naturally always think about my personal
issues. But this takes discipline. It means I need to re-train my mind to put
Christ and His example for me back at the center of my mind, which takes daily
and some times, constant reminders of my purpose as a Christian.
2.
Secondly, the other
stuff in life begins to take care of itself.
I am not saying that someone will mail you the winning lottery ticket to
the half billion dollar jackpot, but I am saying that God, in his mysterious
ways, begins to provide for our needs (not our wants, which we can easily
confuse as our needs). This usually
begins with Him re-shaping our way of thinking about our needs, teaching us to
become more content with the bare necessities.
As a pastor, I want to
think I have it all together, thus the reason I was hesitating to write
this. But I am only fooling myself. My prayer is that somewhere in this life lesson,
you can be encouraged to refocus yourself back on to the Kingdom of God. I believe the entire church can be much more
effective if we trusted more in the Lord for our daily needs while focusing
more on the souls of those around us.
