In the movie Alice in Wonderland, Alice came to an icy fork in the road. Panic stung her as she stood frozen with indecision. She lifted her eyes upward looking for guidance. Her eyes did not see God, just a Cheshire cat leering at her from his perch in the tree above.
“Which way should I go?” asked Alice.
“That depends,” said the cat.
“On what?” asked Alice.
“It depends on your destination. Where are you going?” asked the cat.
“I don’t know,” stammered Alice.
“Then,” said the cat with an even wider grin, “It doesn’t matter.”
Have you ever felt like Alice? You’re standing at a crossroads in your life. You have to make a decision but you have absolutely no idea which way to go.
Sometimes it’s hard to know which road to take. And the longer we think about it, the deeper our worry becomes. But, really, we have only two choices. We can either panic or we can pray.
Prayer seems to be out of date to many in this world of instant information. The Internet is a large library that gives you information on almost any topic. It will even give you information on how to make those big decisions. But the problem with that information is that it is all human-made answers, prone to mistakes, inconsistencies and imperfection.
On the other hand, Jesus teaches us that we can give Him our worries, we can ask His direction simply by asking God to provide for your needs and then trusting that He will provide.
We can trust God because the Bible says in 1 John 1:5, “Here is the message we have heard from Christ and now announce to you: God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.”
In other words, God can be trusted because there is no uncertainty when it comes to God. To God everything is clear and you don’t have to worry about being surprised by the unexpected because somehow God did not quite calculate something right into His response to your situation.
Because God is fully trustworthy and fully dependable, we can let out a sigh of relief when it comes to trusting Him for our needs. For instance, we can ask God to give us the food we need each day. When Jesus was teaching His disciples how to pray, He told them to pray “give us today our daily bread.” What is daily bread? Well, it is those necessities of life, which includes our physical and material needs that we always seem to find ourselves worrying about. God wants you to ask Him to provide these things so that you don’t have to worry about them. He has gone on record making the promise that if you will honestly trust Him, He will provide for all your needs.
Philippians 4:19 says, “My God shall supply all your needs according to His rich supply in Christ Jesus.”
And so, what do you find yourself needing today? Do you need that extra energy to make it through the day? Do you need help with your finances? How about wisdom to make that big decision? You basically have a choice to make.... you can panic or you can pray.
Philippians 4:6 reminds us that we don’t have to be anxious about anything, but we have the choice to pray about it. God says you can pray about anything. Nothing is too great for God’s power to do something about.
Rick Warren once said that anything worth worrying about is worth praying about. If we prayed as much as we worry, we’d have a lot less to cause us stress. Give God your worries. And then choose to honestly trust Him. Trust His answer. In fact, don’t stop trusting! Keep trusting Him even after He responds to your prayer.
This column was provided by Tri-Community Baptist Church.
