Mornings With Jesus 2016: 7-Day DevotionalSample

When I’m on a plane, I mentally inventory my backpack’s contents in case we crash on a deserted island (never mind that we’re flying over the Midwest). Back home, I muse about how well my vegetable garden could support us if society crumbled and all the stores closed.

My creative imagination is useful for writing novels, but it can be my enemy when it invents worst-case scenarios. Perhaps I believe a preplanned response for every bad thing guarantees I’ll have solutions ready to go and can control the fallout. But my “just in case” imaginings steal joy from my day.

If one of my children doesn’t respond to a text, my imagination jumps to pictures of them in a hospital bed. When my husband is late coming home from work, I have to push away the mental picture of a car accident. I see a stack of mail and worry it holds an unexpected bill. Soon my emotions slip into a dismal place of expecting the worst.

That’s why I love Jesus’s words in Matthew. I catch a humorous tone here, as if He’s saying, Really? You don’t have enough actual challenges to face? You have to waste energy mulling over imaginary ones? He longs to free us from our need to control each possible eventuality. He invites us to turn our focus to Him. If the plane goes down, we are in His hands. If society crumbles, He is still our Savior. We don’t have the power to avoid all of life’s troubles, but as we face them, we can trust that He will be with us. By entrusting our lives fully to Him, we can stop living in fear. —Sharon Hinck

FAITH STEP: Next time your mind jumps to worrying about something, tell Jesus you want to put all of your tomorrows in His hands. Allow Him to lift the burden of control from your shoulders.

Taken from Mornings with Jesus 2016 by Guideposts. Learn More