Each Day Already is a Challenge

God's Will

On Sunday, our pastor spoke about Mary. He said something about how perhaps the Catholics talk a bit too much about Mary's role and the Protestants don't speak about it enough. That's probably true.

As part of Pastor John's sermon, he showed some clips about a teen girl discovering she was pregnant. He reminded us that Mary was that young, and that being with child without a husband at that time and in that culture was not good. She could have been stoned to death. And yet her faith in God was strong enough to be courageous about this.

Today I read a devotional about submitting to God's will. The writer said, "When it gets right down to it, when I initially said, "Your will, Lord, not mine," what I really meant was, "Your will, not mine, as long as Your will is the same as mine and it doesn't involve hardship or suffering!" To see the whole devotional: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/chronicpaindevotional/message/3008

Boy that statement hit home. It's easy to say we want God's will and not our own. It's also easy to say, "Wait! This isn't what I had in mind when I said that!"

Our pastor's sermon had four key points about faith:

1) It is not age dependent.
2) If you choose to walk by faith you will never be alone, but will probably be favored.
3) Faith requires a little courage on our part.
4) Faith means that worry can be replaced by worship.

That last one requires some emphasis and reflection. If we drop those worries at the Lord's feet, we can freely worship. We can freely minister to others. We can go on, knowing that God is taking care of everything. Our problems come when we give our troubles to Him and then try to snatch them back again.