What do we do with these worries? Take your anxieties to the cross–literally. Next time your worried about your health or house or finances or flights, take a mental trip on the hill. Spend a few moments looking again at the pieces of passion.
Run your thumb over the tip of the spear. Balance a spike in the palm of your hand. Read the wooden sign written in your own language. And as you do, touch the velvet dirt, moist with the blood of God. Blood he bled for you. The spear he took for you. The nails he felt for you. The sign you left for you.
He did all this for you. Knowing this, and know all he did for you there, don’t you think he will look out for you here?
Or as Paul wrote, “He did not spare his own son but gave him for us all. So with Jesus, God will surely give us all things” (Romans 8:32).
Do yourself a favor; take your anxious moments to the cross. Leave them there with your band moments, your mad moments, and your anxious moments. And may I suggest one more? Your final moment.
Barring the return of Christ first, you and I will have one. A final moment. A final breath. A final widening of the eyes and beating of the heart. In a split second you’ll leave what you know and enter what you don’t.
That’s what bothers us. Death is the great unknown. We’re always a bit skittish about the unknown.
Sara certainly was. Denalyn and I thought it was a great idea. We would kidnap the girls from school and take them on a weekend trip. We made reservations at a hotel and cleared the trip with their teachers but kept it secret from our girls. When we showed up at Sara’s fourth grade classroom on Friday afternoon, we’d thought she’d be thrilled. She wasn’t. She was afraid. She didn’t want to leave!
As we left, I assured her nothing was wrong. We had come to take her to a fun place. Didn’t work. By the time we got to the car, she was crying. She was confused. She didn’t like the interruption.
Now do we. God promises to come at an unexpected hour and take us from the gray world we know to a golden world we don’t. But since we don’t, we aren’t sure we want to go. We even get upset at the thought of his coming.
For that reason God wants us to do what Sara finally did–trust her father. “Don’t let your hearts be troubled,” he urged. “I will come back and take you to be with me so that you may be where I am” (John 3).
By the way, in a short time Sara relaxed and enjoyed the trip. In fact, she didn’t want to come back. You won’t want to either.
Troubled about your final moments? Leave them at the foot of the cross. Leave them there with your bad moment, mad moments, and anxious moments.
About this time someone is thinking, “You know, Max, if I leave all those moments at the cross, I won’t have any moments left but good ones.” Well, what do you know? I guess you wont.
>> Make a list of everything your worrying about.–health, finances, family, job, and so on. Ask God to help you see all of them in light of eternity. Thank him that he’s looking out for you.
From a book by Max Lacudo
Lord You Rain On Us Your Glory 