How To Live Free From Anxiety Series

This last week Michelle and I enjoyed the Mid-Year Pastor and Wives retreat which was held at the Kahler Hotel in downtown Rochester. In fact the hotel is surrounded on three sides by the Mayo Clinic so it is literally right in the middle of the clinic. We were having a great retreat but as you sat in the lobby, or moved about in the hotel about 80% of everyone you saw was there because of medical problems. Wheelchairs were everywhere, people on oxygen walked the halls, and bandages were common sites. While it seemed like there were more elderly then younger folks there, all age groups were well represented in this attempt of curing various illnesses and diseases. I overheard one mom talking about her young daughter and confirming to the person on the other end that it was now confirmed that she had some type of cancer.

As I sat and watched all this, I had to ask the question, why not me? I have good health; very rarely do I get sick (although this year has been an exception) and hardly ever have to go to the doctor. Why do these folks have to suffer? What cosmic choice was made that I should have great health and these people don’t? You start to let that rattle around in your head a bit and sooner or later you come to the conclusion that it is only by God’s grace that I have the health that I have. The very ability that I have to be a healthy, wealth producing person rather then a wealth consuming person, is a gift from God.

When you draw that conclusion about your ability to produce wealth you then begin to realize that everything you have is a gift from God. From your home to your car, from your food to your clothes, from your wife to your kids: everything you have is a gift from God. In fact the very ability that you have to produce wealth or even offspring in the form of children, is a gift given by God and so those things are truly gifts from God.

2. If what we have is to be cared for by God

It then only makes sense that if God gave these things to you as a gift, He will also take care of them. One of the things I have noticed sense being a dad is that my kids don’t take near as good of care of things as I do and I am sure my dad thought the same thing about me. You purchase a nice gift for your child at Christmas or for their birthday and you know how much it cost. You know how many hours you had to work to acquire that gift. I may be weird but sometimes I figure out in my head how many hours I had to spend at a job working in order to purchase something. Sense being salaried and a Pastor it harder to do now, but when I was working for Stanly Steamer getting paid by the hour and as I was driving in the truck from one job to another thinking about the date I would be on with Michelle that weekend I would start to think that this dinner was going to cost say $40 to $50 by the time we ate, got our drinks, then may-be went to the movies or something. That meant that I would work almost an entire day just to take Michelle out on a date that would last only about 3 hours that weekend, wow, love has a funny affect on personal economy (but she was worth it). So it only goes to reason that if I give a gift to my kids I know the cost involved so you betcha I want them to take care of that toy, bike, or new piece of furniture.