Anxiety is a three letter word..

It's "that" time of year again. Frosted windowpanes, Christmas carolers, decorations galore. A time when friends and family gather to celebrate Christ's birth. Yet for some it can be a lonely time- away from friends and family. For others, it can be a depressing time as we focus on what we don't have/can't give and financial stresses.  This evening I fell into this category.  I was anxious about my car (my muffler could fall off any minute- it was welded together but on a rusty pipe- no I don't have money to fix it properly yet).

Worry is a sin.

  "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?"
                                          --Matthew 5:25-30


Worry is a  sin I often indulge in and it always leads to anxiety and covetousness/envy.  Nothing good ever comes of it!

So I prayed for the muffler (yes God cares about mufflers because He cares about His children!) and then began to deliberately list out loud things I had to be thankful to God for.

I woke up this evening in a warm bed, washed my clothes in clean water, and made a healthy meal of fried potatoes.  I have a job to go to which provides me with enough income to pay my bills.  Already I am in the top 10% of all the people who have ever lived!  I had a heavy, very warm coat and gloves to protect me from the cold and a car to transport me to work and back.

Most of all, I have salvation.  I have been rescued from my sins and am a child of God!  1 John says:

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.


All this to say is that this month, I am going to try every day to be thankful and ask God for His provision and simply trust Him!  Easier said than done..