Careless in His Care

For my husband Gavin and I, the last few months have seen us in some personally straining situations and testing circumstances. We have stepped out in obedience to a call God has placed on our hearts, but it has required a huge amount of faith. We haven't seen the promised breakthrough yet, but in the meantime the gap between what God has told us to do and the reality of his promise manifesting in our life is getting smaller and smaller. The funny thing is, it's not about the manifestation of this breakthrough (it never is, is it!) but the journey he is taking us on on the inside, the purification he is doing in our hearts and the transformation this is creating in our life. It's all pretty exciting, and what he is doing inside of us is far more powerful than what he is doing on the outside.In the midst of this vacuum between our reality and his vision, between the facts of our world but the truth of his Word, we find ourselves balancing on the tightrope that hovers over utter destruction if we fall, yet absolute glory when we make it to the other side. And right now we've walked too far to turn around and go back, yet not quite on the brink of the destination yet. It's a scary place to be...but it's so exciting at the same time!It's exciting because on the thin line of this tightrope our only safety net is the hand of God, and our only balancing apparatus is our faith and trusting in his Word and promises. It is in this place that we are forced to completely abandon ourselves to him. After all, the only options are falling to our doom or sprinting weightlessly to his glory.I have been meditating on Jesus' words in Matt 6:19-34, a favourite of mine in the best of circumstances, but particularly hitting a point lately. I have learnt to a new level the significance of "can worrying add an extra day to your life?" (vs 27) Well, I'm not exactly looking for extra days, but I am looking for his provision. Verse 32 tells us directly that 'worrying' or stressing about any cares in this world, is what unbelievers do "...these things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers..." In other words, if you truly have the living God in your life, if Jesus really is your Savior, if you have the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in you, around you and through you....then you shouldn't be worrying about a single thing, no matter how big or how small. Pretty easy to say isn't it! And I believe it, oh how I believe it! Yes God, I give you my cares! Jesus I lay my heavy burdens at your feet! Holy Spirit come and give me peace in your presence! I say it, I pray it, I believe it I declare it! ...but in order to actually receive it and experience it, I have to practice it. And sometimes we have to practice things before we experience them. In fact, we have to keep practicing them (and practicing them and practicing them) until we experience them.So, I have been practicing resting in God lately. To a whole new level than what I normally do. I have been practicing handing my cares and worries over to him, because really, what do I gain from holding on to them? Not only do I not gain anything, I actually lose everything. Time. Energy. Hope. Peace. Attitude. Morale. And when you start losing these things the door opens for the enemy to sneakily creep in and start placing doubt and fear in your mind. And then you end up back at the place of fear and worry, "living like the unbelievers." We don't need to live like the unbelievers who have every reason to worry because they don't have any security in their future, they don't have any hope, they don't have any certainty ahead of them. But we do! God is our hope, our strength, our future, our security, our confidence, our assurance. He is faithful! When we take off the burdens and weights and place them at Jesus' feet (and leave them there!) we must also remember to take up all that he offers us...faith, hope, peace, assurance, stability, confidence. These really are a light burden and easy yoke!As I was meditating on these verses in Matthew 6 yesterday I read the Message version and a particular phrase struck me - "careless in the care of God" (vs 26). I absolutely love this! This is exactly how we should be when we are truly resting in him. Not only should we be at rest in our hearts (our emotions) our minds (our thoughts) and our bodies (our physical stature), but we should actually go that step further and be CARELESS! Absolutely careless! When I think of careless I conjure up feelings of freedom so pure and exciting that I am weightless to run free in leaps and bounds. I think of the purity of children and how careless they are in life and how they are able to truly see the joy in everything. Why are children so careless? Because they don't have to care. Now I know not every child in this world has the privelidge of feeling this way, but when children are in a family and under parents who are looking after them the way God intended, they don't have to worry about anything because they know, from experience, that everything is ok, mom and dad have everything under control. In reality this may not be the case, the family circumstances may be in utter chaos, but a good parent will never let the children feel that. The parents take the weight of the burden, the brunt of the situation, so that the children don't have to worry. They don't have to know what's going on, because it's being taken care of and they are able to be free and enjoy life. Multiply that by about a million and that's how we should be as we rest in God. We can be careless because we are in his care. He is taking care of everything! Everything is under control. He's got this one covered.The thing is, he can only take control when we give it to him. So while we're holding on to the worries of this world, or going back to Jesus feet and picking up the burdens we laid there, we can't feel this freedom. We truly have to hand it over to him once and for all, and then let our spirits fly to the next level and experience the freedom, peace and joy from being careless in his care!