Give it All to Jesus

The following post is from a devotional I was asked to write for a mission trip my church is participating in very soon. Much of this content I’ve learned from the ministry of John Eldredge and Wild at Heart.

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Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. (1 Peter 5:7 NLT)

I don’t know if you’ve noticed lately, but things in the world are a bit crazy! Technology has progressed at a rapid pace the last several years. With the invention of smartphones, social media, and 24/7 information at our fingertips, it is getting more and more difficult to find peace and quiet. With the whole world connected now, we can know what is happening anywhere around the globe at any moment. The human soul was never meant to carry the burden of all of that information. To make matters worse, we each have our own struggles and issues that we face every single day.

Thankfully, when life becomes too much, there’s a place we can turn: Jesus.

Peter tells us in his first letter to cast all of our burdens on the Lord because He cares about us. What an encouraging thought! The God of the universe cares about every little detail of our lives. One of my favorite passages of Scripture is found in Psalm 37:

The LORD directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. (Psalm 37:23 NLT)

When you find that the cares of this life are overwhelming you, turn to Jesus! Multiple times a day, I pause and pray a simple prayer…

“Jesus, I give everyone and everything to You. I give everything that is burdening me over to You right now.”

We were never meant to carry our burdens alone. Jesus longs to help us. We just need to trust Him by giving all of our cares over to Him. Try it today, and experience the peace that only Jesus can give.

Jesus, we thank You for caring about every little thing that we go through. You are so kind to us! Teach us to trust You and rely completely on You. Thank You for the peace that You bring into our lives. Amen.

Looking For Direction

If there’s one thing I’ve figured out in my nearly 40 years on this planet, it’s that life can’t be figured out. Every day, we are all faced with decisions that can have serious repercussions on our future. Decisions that not only impact ourselves, but the people around us that we care about the most. Is there a way that we can know what to do? Is there a way to avoid making serious mistakes in our decision making? I think there is a way. While I know I will never be able to make sense of life, I know that God has it figured out.

I spent several years working with teenagers, and adolescence is a time of great uncertainty. There are so many life-altering decisions that can be made in the course of those years.

Who should I date?
Who should I hang out with?
Where should I go to college?
When can I be independent?

These are just a few questions that teens face. So I felt led to talk with them about how they can know what to do. Scripture is filled with evidence to the fact that God is our guide. The Bible has numerous examples of God leading His people in the way that they should go. When the uncertainty appeared, God showed up at the perfect time to light the way.

When the people of Israel were in the desert for 40 years, God’s presence and guidance was with them. He was seen as the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. Whenever it was time for them to break camp, the pillar lifted and guided them to the next location. When it set down, they setup camp and didn’t leave until the pillar moved again.

God put that in His word to give us an example of what His nature is like. He is our guide. He shows us the way we should go.

There are numerous verses that prove this point, but I want to highlight a couple:

Proverbs 3:5-6 NLT

Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.

God will show us which path to take with our lives if we trust Him, and we don’t rely on what we think is right or makes the most sense. God’s plans are not always exactly what we think should happen. Complete trust in Him means waiting on Him and believing that He knows what He is doing. 

When I talked to students about their lives and choices, I always used the illustration of a path. Life is a roadway that we travel down, and if we let God, He will guide us the right path. This is something He wants to do!

Psalm 32:8 NLT

The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you.”

However, there is a catch to all of this. In order to receive God’s guidance, we have to actually pursue it. Proverbs 2 is all about us seeking wisdom from God. He says that if we pursue it with utmost priority, we will find it. Guaranteed. God won’t leave us guessing.

I don’t know about you, but I find it comforting to know that God wants to guide my life. He knows the future. All of the fear and uncertainty that can drive me crazy doesn’t affect Him. He already sees it. He’s got a plan for all of us that exceeds any of our expectations. All we have to do is trust Him to guide us, and seek His direction as a priority in our lives.

Legacy

Today, my Grandpa (affectionately known as Big Pawpaw) would've been 92 years old. He passed away in 2007 after a long battle with kidney cancer. He is truly missed by our family. His strength and constant faith were such an anchor for us as we walked through life.

I'm grateful for the impact he made on my life. He modeled for me what it meant to daily spend time God... what it meant to trust God for BIG things... what it meant to live a life of integrity...

I always loved looking through his Bible. His Bible was like a journal for him. He made notes all over every page! It was a testament to his daily walk with the Lord. When I would stay at their house over holidays, I would often find him sitting in his chair in the morning just praying. He constantly prayed for our family.

My Grandpa was truly a visionary. He was always dreaming big and believing God for great things. He would always encourage my Dad (a pastor) to always believe the Lord for awesome things. He would spend hours coming up with ways to make our church more effective in ministry. He truly lived out Ephesians 3:20 and believed God for "immeasurably more."

He was a man of integrity. He was a man of his word. He was who he claimed to be. I can't tell you how impacting that was to me as I was growing up. He showed me how a man is supposed to live in this world; for his God, for his family, and for his neighbor.

As his life here on earth was drawing to a close, all of the family went to visit him at the hospital. During that time, he called my family of four up around his bedside. He looked me in the eye and said, "Brett, fight the fight and keep the faith." In that moment, my faith became real to me. If a man who had suffered so much was still bravely holding onto to his faith, then Jesus is all that He claims to be. I wasn't there when he passed away, but my Dad says that some of my Grandpa's last words were from Romans 8:38-39 -

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I'm so thankful for the legacy he left our family. I'm grateful for the hope that I have in Christ that I will one day see him again.

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