Now let's move on to new words for today. I'm really excited to share about what God revealed to my heart around worry.
In a nice evening conversation with a sweet friend recently, she mentioned a specific moment in her life when a certain worry had begun. It's no longer an issue in her life but it put an thought in my head, and now defines how I consider worry.
Worry is planted.
But it doesn't have to grow.
Similar to the farmer sowing the seeds, shared in the Gospel and speaking of how everyone reacts differently to hearing the Truth of the Gospel, I now see worry as that.
The difference being, I never want to let it grow. I want the seed of worry, when it pops into my mind and thoughts, words and actions, to immediately die and not even touch the dirt of the ground.
Scripture speaks of the fruit of the Spirit. This past summer, God clarified some things to me. I was being asked to fulfill things I couldn't and He comforted me with the truth that there are specific fruits we are meant to see in ministry.
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control
Those are them. It's not a short list but is also only that many. Those are what we're meant to see in our ministry. Worry is not a fruit of the Spirit, which means it's not something we're meant to seek to have. We need to destroy it when it comes up and drop those worries at the feet of Jesus.
I think as a female, and I can only speak from this perspective of female as it is the only one I know, I tend to worry and have anxiety over various things quite often. I see it also in my friends (both in real life and bloggers) so I'll use "we" language.
We worry, us women.
We like to over analyze and fret, to think things through, and I really truly believe that is not our call. It's okay to think about things, and to analyze things, to work hard, and to plan well, but there is a reason God told Martha to stop working and praised Mary for seeking truth.
Martha said "what does Jesus need? ME."
Mary said "what do I need? JESUS."
We need Jesus, not more things to do.
God doesn't even make us hoist up our worries to the hands of Jesus. We get to drop them at His feet, at the bottom of the cross. Wow. That is amazing to me.
We're called to many things as followers of Jesus, but worrying is not a call on our lives.
So what is the call on your life? What calls have you added that need to be taken away? Are you letting worry grow instead of watching for it and not even letting it hit the ground? Is it time to take some worries to Jesus and recognize that worry is not a fruit of the Spirit? I get that these are tough questions and I'm not really expecting comments on them but maybe your heart needs to think about them.
