propping up that foolish soul

I got a brief twenty minutes on a sunny chair today between home from church at 2 and dinner friends coming at 5, and as He so often has, the Lord used Oswald Chambers to convict my heart right where it is. 

Our dear Haiti is in such a genuinely unprecedented deep mess, and political issues keep mounting, and Hurricane Elsa is looming, and then a little plane like the ones we have taken many times to get from the North of Haiti to the South of Haiti went down a few days ago and killed all six passengers, leaving
mamas and little ones and ministries and churches. Matt and I and our children have done that, flown that, and you cringe through all the photos from the crash, from the streets, from the capital, from the centers where thousands of displaced people gather, and their faces are tattooed on my mind.

All our hurting hurting brothers and sisters. All the muddy and seemingly impossible situations. All the wicked, all the broken, all the injustice. All the children.

When we were in Haiti during incredibly hard times such as these, it was hard to breath. Or think of anything else. When we are not in Haiti during incredibly hard times such as these, and we know our brothers and sisters are suffering...it is hard to breath FOR them.

It's hard to answer surface questions at church like, "how was your weekend?" with NOT a fire-hydrant of Haitian heartbreak.

So I sat in the sun and started in on July 4th's meditation from my dear Chambers, and he started in on not fretting.  Which I thought perhaps was a thought he (and the Gospel he is representing) were not understanding. And then he answered that, too.

Wherever you're at today, whatever you're up against...

Do not fret— it only causes harm. —Psalm 37:8

Fretting means getting ourselves “out of joint” mentally or spiritually. It is one thing to say, “Do not fret,” but something very different to have such a nature that you find yourself unable to fret. It’s easy to say, “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him” (Psalm 37:7) until our own little world is turned upside down and we are forced to live in confusion and agony like so many other people. Is it possible to “rest in the Lord” then? If this “Do not” doesn’t work there, then it will not work anywhere. This “Do not” must work during our days of difficulty and uncertainty, as well as our peaceful days, or it will never work. And if it will not work in your particular case, it will not work for anyone else. Resting in the Lord is not dependent on your external circumstances at all, but on your relationship with God Himself.

Worrying always results in sin. We tend to think that a little anxiety and worry are simply an indication of how wise we really are, yet it is actually a much better indication of just how wicked we are. Fretting rises from our determination to have our own way. Our Lord never worried and was never anxious, because His purpose was never to accomplish His own plans but to fulfill God’s plans. Fretting is wickedness for a child of God.

Have you been propping up that foolish soul of yours with the idea that your circumstances are too much for God to handle? Set all your opinions and speculations aside and “abide under the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1). Deliberately tell God that you will not fret about whatever concerns you. All our fretting and worrying is caused by planning without God.