I tend to be a bit of an anxious person. A tad bit of a worrier, some might say. Control freak, even, if you'd like to be blunt. I like my ducks to be in a row. I want future ducks to be in a row. The unhatched ducks have already been categorized and strapped into place. I like order and control. The funny thing is.... those concepts are inaccessible to my regenerate heart.

I am not meant to have my life in a perfect order so far as I'm concerned. My life can be as haphazard as all get out, if that's what God wants. Control? Nah, that's God's too. I have no definite order and no control of my life. That's all surrendered to God.

Except sometimes it's not. I KNOW that God loves and cares for me. I KNOW that he provides. Yet, I sit and try to make it all happen on my own. I can't do that. On my own I'll never be able to do it right, it is only through God's grace. Over this last year, I have stressed a lot about money. I'm a college student planning a wedding. There are a lot of expenses and not enough work hours. Yet God has been good.

Last summer I saved up money during the summer. Different circumstances arose and that money went to cover expenses. It cleaned me out, but I had just enough. Throughout the school year, I worked a job while paying for a few new bills. Money was tight, but again I had just enough. Come now to the beginning of summer and I'm budgeting out my new job for savings. Lo and behold I yet again will have just enough for all that I want to save for. This time I even have a little extra due to a babysitting job. Yet I still want more.

The problem, dear people, is allowing "just enough" to be enough. To understand that it is good enough because it is exactly what God has purposed for you. Money is an idol to me, honestly. Not in a way that I aspire to have wealth to enjoy thousands of luxuries (in fact, I'm rather frugal). No, money is my idol because I constantly seek my security, hope, and confidence in arbitrary paper than in the awesome power of the Holy God.

I urge you, if there is something that you worry about to confess it to God. Ask him to remove this worry from your life and increase in yourself the understanding that he controls it all. I'm not there yet. I am still very much afraid, but I ask constantly.

I want to not want control. I want to understand that I can only achieve things in this life by the grace of God. I want to live a life that makes evident my knowledge that financial security means nothing in the face of the security of an almighty God.

This is NOT to say that planning is something evil and that we shouldn't do anything. Thee point here is that all things are done through Christ, all good things are a gift. They are not the work of your own hands, on your own, nor are they gods to worship and pursue. We must loosen our grip on the concerns of this life in favor of resting in the sureness of our God.

Seek his will. Surrender your wayward heart. In him is freeness from the worries of this life. He promised to care for his people. Come all who are weary and heavy laden. In him we find our rest.