HE'S UP

He’s Up! This morning, as I was delivering my oldest son to school, I received a text message from a friend of mine. He was asking for prayer because he was facing two interviews today at work in order to keep his job. He had been up most of the night praying and was not feeling very settled. I shot him back a message including the passage in Philippians 4:7 which says, "May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." My friend was having a hard time finding peace in his situation. When I arrived at work today, I opened up my email and found an email entitled “GIVE YOUR TROUBLES TO GOD; HE WILL BE UP ALL NIGHT ANYWAY.” What a timely message. So many times we have difficulty simply laying our concerns at the feet of the Savior. We try so hard to solve our issues by ourselves and forget that there is One who desires more than anything to take our cares on Himself. Cast all your anxiety on him, because He cares for you.I Peter 5:7 Did we hear that? Cast ALL your anxiety on Jesus, because He cares for you. But Peter reminds us that there is one thing we need to do even before we cast our cares on Jesus. Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. I Peter 5:6 Humility is defined as the state or quality of being humble, or the absence of pride. Humility in reference to God is the act of laying aside our desires and wants in exchange for what God wants and desires. Our goal should be that God’s desires become our desires. Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4 What a promise! I think that these two passages fit together like hand in glove. Look at it this way: If we humble ourselves before God and delight in Him, then He will lift us up in due time and give us the desires of our heart. God loves us so much that He does not want us to be burdened by all the problems in life. He wants us living an abundant life, a life that includes all the desires of our heart. The next time we go to bed with our concerns weighing on our hearts, remember to humble ourselves before the Lord and give those concerns over to the One that created the Heavens and Earth. He, not we, is the only one who can solve our problems. We need to pray for one another every day that we will not let Satan continue to beat us down with discouragement and that God’s peace will flood our lives. Aaron Hodges