Plan like you're Gonna Live Forever

    I'm a planner,  I have a Happy Planner,  I use it as a mini journal also adding pictures and brief entries about what's happening.  If I wake up with a chorus running through my mind,  I jot it down there.  I keep track of specific prayers and their outcomes. It works great for me. 
    I have used all my “cancelled”  and “ rescheduled”  stickers over the last month.  I cried as I marked though ten days of tropical stickers with a red marker.  My long awaited cruise to Hawaii has been sidelined by a bug.  That was the day, I despaired.  I wasn’t worried about the future, I couldn’t see any future.  As we hunker in lock down,  it’s hard to see any future.  My planner sets blank because I have no idea when I can make nail appointments again or have lunch with a friend.  No trips or events can be written into my planner.  Even doctors and dentists don't want to give me a date. It’s very easy to be hopeless  about the future.  Some days I wonder if this is the way we are going to live till Jesus comes.  A friend told me today this is going to wipe out humanity.  That's not Biblical but I can see how one could come to that conclusion.   It’s no surprise we feel out of control,  because we are. 

    Today’s Bible verse is Luke’s interpretation of the same teaching Mark wrote about in yesterday’s post.   Mark focuses on Jesus’ actions rather than His words.  Luke, the physician, is very practical.  He, too, talks about birds, flowers, food and drink and he acknowledges that we are worth more than birds.  But, Luke, throws in a little barb, (NLT)  “ Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?  And if worry can’t accomplish a little thing like that, what’s the use of worrying over bigger things?” (Luke 12:25,26.)   He calls adding a single moment to our lives a " little thing".  It's an obvious point,  no amount of worry is going to help anything.  We can’t control the smallest thing in our lives any more than we can contol the Coronavirus.  Worrying about our future is futile.  Being out of control is frightening but the fact is we are out of control.  Knowing we can't control anything  requires us to make a choice.  Trust or Fear?  The birds are not fearful, they trust the God of all creation,  maker of Heaven and Earth.  

    I memorized a little couplet in college that comes to mind today:

“Your love in times past, forbids me to think, you’ll leave me at last in troubles to sink.”  

Me and Jesus,  we have a history.  I have found Him trustworthy

Today,  I'm going to Think on that.