from On Life in St.Petersburg by Liz Hulley —
I’m starting a series on paradoxes of faith! You know, those aspects that are a little hard to express logically, yet fill us with wonder about God.
Today’s topic relates to our life on earth. What kind of life does God promise us, and what type of behavior does He expect from us? Certain factors can be confusing.
The Lord tells us not to worry about earthly comforts, yet offers consolation when we DO worry.
A Little Thing Called Housing
Raise your hand if you haven’t ever worried about where you were going to live. I will include here any traveling, and even choosing a bunk at camp-hey, that can be a long week!
The Bible says that the Son of Man had nowhere to lay His head (Lk. 9:58). This can be applied in different ways, and is tragic considering that He was a king. Personally, I read this as illustrating the fact that he was born in humble conditions, and that His ministry required Him to give up many comforts.
When you don’t know where you are going to sleep one night or sometime in the future, I don’t think it is the time to point out that children in some remote country sleep outside, although thankfulness is a good character trait…and actually, thinking of Haiti does make me count my blessings.
But, getting back to the point…studying the life of Christ serves a few different purposes, among them: 1) To learn to follow His example, and 2) To be assured that He UNDERSTANDS.
When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, which was modeled by Jesus, we ask about our daily bread-very much an earthly, practical need, but one that He himself deemed worthy to bring before God.
When we try to live as though we don’t care about our living conditions, we are really just burying anxiety. We are either at peace about it or we aren’t. There is no indifferent middle ground. And if anxiety is there, we must deliver it to the Lord. Though He tells us not to worry, He means that we ought to deliver our worry up to Him.
