"If God gives such
attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even
seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his
best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not
be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving.
People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things,
but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality,
God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll
find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

"Give
your 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 6:30-34

Sometimes life just gets away from me. Some of those times I feel like I’m trying to catch a bus that’s already pulling away from the curb. But other times, like this week, I feel like I’m on a roller-coaster. I’m on the ride — not running beside trying to get on — which is good, but the thing is going so fast and looping around so much I can’t focus on anything. Not so good. And even though I’m securely strapped in, I feel very much like I’m going to fall out. Or at least lose everything in my pockets.

Know what I mean?

I used to think the phrase from which I pulled the title of this post was trite and irrelevant. How wrong I was! It’s in times like this week, with work and school and church and my own emotional and spiritual healing and recovery  all clamoring for attention — all needing my focus, my time, my energy — that I learn that the only way I can get through and still maintain my sanity is to live one day at a time. And sometimes it’s one hour at a time; one minute at a time; one second at a time—-trusting God to take care of the minutes, hours, days, even months, to come because I just cannot think that far ahead without going crazy with fear.

It’s hard to surrender control of my future to God. I want to be the Master of My Own Destiny! The Queen of my own Domain! Yet when I look back over my life, I realize that I’m not such a good Master, and an even worse queen (unless we’re talking Drama!); and the Destiny and Domains I chose just aren’t all that. Even so, I struggle with letting go.

I know it’s illusion. I know I can’t really control my destiny or my domain. Oh sure, I can make my plans, and spin my webs, and work-work-work like a dog to make it all work out the way I want. But in then end, it’s all for naught. I cannot control the world, the economy, the government, my church, my friends, my bosses, my co-workers or the dorks on the road. I cannot control anything but me: my responses, my actions, my words, and my thoughts. I cannot control the wind or which way it blows. I can only adjust my sails to catch as much of it as I can and point my boat in the general direction I want to go.

Yet I try. So hard sometimes.

How do I steep my life in God-reality,
God-initiative, God-provisions? How to I surrender control of things I’m so used to blindly insisting I have control over? How do I give my entire attention to what God is doing right now when so many other things are clamoring for my attention? The only way I know how is to surrender one thing at a time and live one day at a time, one minute at a time.

How are you?