Word-Filled Wednesday: Noise

I've been noticing lately that it's hard to truly worship when I'm stressed. Lately I've had a couple of disappointments in my job coupled with a decision that puts us in more debt than I'm comfortable, and I've found myself stressed. Actually worried.

It didn't take long to discover that when I'm worried, I don't like my job, I don't like my husband, I don't like our kids, and I'm generally just a crab. God has had to take me aside more than once in the past week a give me little perspective shifts.

On Sunday, he reminded me that HE is the one who provides for my family. Not me, not Chester. And God has set my wages, not my manager who didn't give me a raise. God gives the rain in the spring, He gives the growth, and the harvest is from His hand. It seems easy (to me) to rely on God for your sustenance when you're a farmer, but it's just as much reality right now where I am. I had just forgotten that He is Jehovah Jireh. God reminded me by having me teach the kids Sunday school the lesson of Him feeding Elijah and the widow of Zerephath. She trusted God and made bread for Elijah, and God provided every day for them. I can trust God too.

Today, He reminds me of the importance and privilege of worship. When my perspective is right, and I'm remembering that He is the LORD of the universe, and that He knows and cares about me - that He sings over me, that He loves me more than I can imagine, that my little repentances and bits of spiritual growth here and there cause Him delight.... It's amazing how little my problems become when I remember that the God of the universe is crazier about me than I am about my kids (and I probably drive Him just as crazy as they drive me). I'm just out of words. It frees me to worship like a kid.