Have you ever noticed how God uses repetition to get your attention? You read a Scripture and then suddenly it is showing up in multiple places. Or perhaps you hear a song that really speaks to you, then you hear it over and over so that its message is ingrained into your heart.
Such was the case for me recently on what I am going to call ‘palm’ Sunday. No, I’m not talking about the Sunday prior to Easter. The things I write about today occurred on the first Sunday in September, but I think you will understand why I call it ‘palm’ Sunday as we go on.
Greg and I attended a church we like to go to when we stay in Athens, Georgia after the UGA football games. The sermon from Pastor Tony was about defeating worry in our lives. It was a great sermon that spoke right to the place most people live. All of us have worried about something at one time or another, haven’t we? On this particular Sunday, I was not aware of anything about which I was worried or overly concerned. The scripture passage Pastor Tony used was from Matthew 6 (NCV). Here it is:
25 “So I tell you, don’t worry about the food or drink you need to live, or about the clothes you need for your body. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothes.
26 Look at the birds in the air. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, but your heavenly Father feeds them. And you know that you are worth much more than the birds.
27 You cannot add any time to your life by worrying about it.
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? Look at how the lilies in the field grow. They don’t work or make clothes for themselves.
29 But I tell you that even Solomon with his riches was not dressed as beautifully as one of these flowers.
30 God clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today but tomorrow is thrown into the fire. So you can be even more sure that God will clothe you. Don’t have so little faith!
31 Don’t worry and say, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’
32 The people who don’t know God keep trying to get these things, and your Father in heaven knows you need them.
33 The thing you should want most is God’s kingdom and doing what God wants. Then all these other things you need will be given to you.
34 So don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will have its own worries. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Classic passage encouraging trust in God, right? Right!
So, Greg and I leave church talking about how much we enjoyed the service. As we are driving back toward the campground, I glance at some emails that have come in on my iPhone while we were in church. One of them is a post from my online buddy, Jon Stolpe, entitled ‘Consider the Flowers’ and the focal verses are…you guessed it….from Matthew 6: 25-34. Immediately I began asking the Lord what He is trying to teach me. The same set of verses twice in an hour.
Then, this morning as I was in the middle of writing this devo, I opened my daily devotion that I receive from Dr. Charles Stanley and InTouch Ministries and the devo was on relinquishing earthly attachments. Hello, Leah!! Two devos speaking to the same topic within 24 hours. Obviously He has something up His sleeve.
This morning when I went out to exercise….which, by the way, is where the Lord and I have a lot of talks, I began praying and asking the Lord to help me have ears to hear what He wanted to speak into my heart and life. As I walked, He reminded me of the visual of a fist tightly closed, holding onto something for dear life. The Holy Spirit whispered into my heart, “some things need to be held with a tightly closed fist, but other things need to be held with an open palm.”
I begin to think about things that need to be held with an open palm. They are the things of this world:
- Money
- Possessions
- Position
- Family
- Health
- Friends
- Service (in the church and in the world)
When we hold all of these things with an open palm, we can offer them back to God in worship and love. Our mistake comes when we hold them so tightly that they become idols and God has to pry our fingers loose from them.
Then I began to think about things that need to be grasped and held onto as if our lives depended on it:
- God’s hand
- Hope
- Wisdom
- God’s Word
- Truth
- Character/Integrity
- Holiness
- God’s Love
- Mercy
- Grace
Grasping hold of the things of God means that we are grasping hold of God and we can never go wrong by doing that. In fact, our very lives depend on us holding tightly to these things.
Once again, God is teaching me to trust His heart. He will always do what is best for me, allowing only those things to come into my life that either refine my faith or expose sin in my heart. If I must relinquish earthly things in order to gain greater heavenly things, I pray I will be obedient to do so. I am reminded of the famous quote from missionary Jim Elliot:
‘He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.’
MEDITATION MOMENT: What are you holding with a closed fist that should be held with an open palm?
