He is not afraid of bad news. His heart remains secure, 

full of confidence in the Lord. 

Psalm 112:7

 

This week my mind threatened to spill with the “what if’s”. I’m in my senior year of university about to graduate after quite a few years of very intense, hard work. But my future afterward, I confess, gives me the shakes.

What if I don’t get a job in the field I want to work in? What if I’m not good enough? What if…

In my devotion time this week I got a good dose of, “Why are you focusing on circumstances and not on Me?” from the Lord.  Here’s a taste of Lysa Terkeurst’s thoughts on Exodus 16:4:

“For years God’s people had been looking in many directions to get their daily needs met. They looked down at crops growing from the land. Their meat came from looking out at the available livestock. And they looked to their Egyptian slave masters in order to be told when they could eat and how much they could eat…But as long as their routines are chained to slave habits, slave thinking and slave activities, they won’t ever experience real freedom.

Real freedom won’t occur with just an external relocation. It requires a complete internal renovation.

And God was brilliant in working on this internal change using their most basic daily need—food. He took them out to the desert where they would not be able to look down at the land, or out to the herds, or over to their slave masters to get their needs met.

They would have to look up.

Their food would come from Him and Him alone…

They were no longer slave people. They were God’s people. And God’s people must learn to look to Him.

…I wonder if God still does this today. Not that He is raining down bread from heaven. But I do think He wants us to experience the true freedom that comes from depending on Him—looking to Him—trusting Him to meet our needs.

And He wants to know if we will follow His instructions to get our provisions met instead of trying to figure everything out on His own.”¹

God’s Word calls us to not worry. To be “anxious for nothing”.² When the “what if’s” of life begin rummaging around in our brain, we have a choice to make. We can either worry or we can set our focus on God, letting Him provide for us in that moment whatever we need to have the strength to face the future. Even if the future is just the next minute we need to breathe.

From My Heart to Yours,
Marcie

For Further Meditation: Exodus 16:1-35; Psalm 112:7; 

Proverbs 12:25; Matthew 6:25-34; ²Philippians 4:6-7