Where do you turn when you feel anxious? This Mother’s Day weekend Jessi Andres brought a message about God’s care and sufficiency.
Psalm 23:1
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
David wrote this song after facing battles, betrayals, loneliness and longing. It was all part of God’s preparation and purpose for David, just like it is for us.
1) Every calling exposes our character. We need to GROW, not GO.
Motherhood, like every calling, demands the best of us and the most of us. In these moments, we find out the truth about who or what we turn to for meaning and comfort.
“An idol is whatever you look at and say in your heart of hearts, ‘If I have that, then I’ll feel my life has meaning, then I’ll know I have value, then I’ll feel significant and secure.”
Timothy Keller
Even the best loves in our lives become liabilities when we put them before God. David learned to trust God before anyone or anything else.
2) Fear makes us foolish. Trust makes us wise.
From the beginning, the strategy of the enemy of our souls has been to introduce FEAR into our relationship with God: fear that God isn’t as good as he says he is, fear that he is holding something back. Eve and Adam believed the LIE about God, and the FEAR it created caused their FOOLISH behavior. The trick was to convince Adam and Eve that they were being courageous by disobeying God instead of trusting him.
1 John 4:18
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear.
Fear is not driven out by perfect circumstances or perfect performance or a perfect family or a perfect home, but by trust that God loves us perfectly.
3) When the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.
I SHALL NOT WANT is a declaration that is more than optimism. We are not glass half-empty people. We aren’t even glass half-full people. We are MY CUP OVERFLOWS people.
Lamentations 3:21-24
Yet hope returns when I remember this one thing: The Lord’s unfailing love and mercy still continue, fresh as the morning, as sure as the sunrise. The Lord is all I have, and so in Him I put my hope.
To be committed to prayer and scripture, confession and community, generosity and rest – this is the way that we remind ourselves and each other that God can supply our every need. Are you living in that trust today?
“If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.”
Mother Theresa
