What I know. What I know is that I went to the funeral last week. It was a memorial for a thirty-four year old man who had died from complications stemming from his cancer treatment. I also know this man left behind a wife and young son. I know many people who had come to pay their respects were sad. I hugged the man’s mother, shook his father’s hand and embraced the heavy heartfelt sorrow that hung in the auditorium air like cold, damp fog that covers coastal cliffs making them disappear.
I know tears began to fall as scenes of his life flash by, snap shot by snap shot on screens positioned around the sanctuary. I kept repeating silently “thirty-four is too young, thirty-four is too young to pass from this world”.
At that instant all my petty complaints seemed so insignificant. I listened as each one of his family remembered their son, brother and nephew. Their memories of camping trips in the desert, cold snowy winter days back in Cape Cod and vacations spent lying on white sandy beaches of Hawaii.
I know for a fact that many of their friends had also lost children, spouses and family members and they too were shedding tears of remembrance for their own losses. Many had come just to show their support and love on a day that all wished had never come.
We must always remember how short life can be! One false step off the curb into the path of an oncoming bus, a last minute fast ride down to the corner market that turns fatal or the deafening silence of a relentless cancer growing is all it takes to come face to face with death’s door.
The truth be told we were never meant to live in this world filled with heartache, death and pain. On the contrary we were meant to live eternal lives free from worry, anxiety, disease and pain.
“Trust in God” Jesus would shout to the masses of people who gathered to hear him teach. “Why do you have so little faith?” he continued. “Your Heavenly Father knows exactly what you need and is more than willing and ready to give to those who ask him. You being evil know how to give good things to your children, how much more your Heavenly Father will give to you!” Jesus told the crowd assembled on the Temple Mount.
Our problem is: we believe in God, but we don’t believe God. He has promised us so many things and we need to begin to claim those promises, for God is the same yesterday, today and forever! He is able, he is able, he is able!
When we are in financial straits, like I find myself presently, we should take our fears, concerns and needs to our Heavenly Father, releasing them, laying them down at His feet for good. Above all we should have faith, trust in His ability to connect the dots in our lives and supply our every need. However we often choose to hold on to, carry our burdens and sometimes carry God’s burdens as well.
Our entire nation is suffering epidemically from diseases brought on by stress, tension, worry and anxiety. We are all caught up in a monstrous dark cyclone of selfishness “I have to be first, I have to get ahead of you, me, me, me, me” and we have been in this condition for far too long.
We try to cram too many things into a single day, often returning home frustrated, angry and drowning in a sea foaming in hopelessness. Many reach for the pill box, liquor bottle or wrongly labeled “alternative medical remedy” for relief when what we really need to do is to simply trust in God to provide for us.
If God is all powerful, all loving and has promised us to take care of us then why don’t we believe Him? Try getting alone with your Heavenly Father, tell him all of your fears, concerns, want and needs, then simply ask him to supply these needs and then leave them at his feet.
After doing that don’t continue to worry about your situation. Believe that God is working all things out for good. He has more resources than we do, He can see the beginning from the end and knows every hair on your head.
“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” John 14:1-6 NKJV.
