Give entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes. (Matt 6:34 'The Message')
I play a silly and senseless mind game in February and into March. It seems I would rather SPECULATE about my federal tax bill than actually take a few hours to calculate it and KNOW what it is. This behavior begs the question, “How can God help me when I don’t even know I need help?” This obsessing seems worse to me than common worry – it is worrying about something even before you have something ‘real’ to worry over.
For a Christ-follower, worry is dumb, but speculation is dumber. A friend told me several years ago that God only gives us power for the present, none for the past (we can only learn from it) and none for the future. Do you think the solution for speculation falls under the KISS (Keep It Simple, Servant) strategy? In my tax bill case it certainly does. I can either have daily, random, speculative thoughts of dread about my taxes (allowing those worries to create an opportunity for my enemy to take advantage of me), or I can simply use that same energy to actually find out what my situation is and then seek God’s wisdom and solution.
Prayer points:
I play a silly and senseless mind game in February and into March. It seems I would rather SPECULATE about my federal tax bill than actually take a few hours to calculate it and KNOW what it is. This behavior begs the question, “How can God help me when I don’t even know I need help?” This obsessing seems worse to me than common worry – it is worrying about something even before you have something ‘real’ to worry over.
For a Christ-follower, worry is dumb, but speculation is dumber. A friend told me several years ago that God only gives us power for the present, none for the past (we can only learn from it) and none for the future. Do you think the solution for speculation falls under the KISS (Keep It Simple, Servant) strategy? In my tax bill case it certainly does. I can either have daily, random, speculative thoughts of dread about my taxes (allowing those worries to create an opportunity for my enemy to take advantage of me), or I can simply use that same energy to actually find out what my situation is and then seek God’s wisdom and solution.
Prayer points:
- What speculative thought in your life are you obsessing over right now?
- Pray: 2 Corinthians 10:5b over it. “we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ”.
- Worry has been defined as negative mediation; flip your mediation toward God’s faithfulness.
- Consider what steps you need to take to consecrate your imagination.
