1 Lord, how long will You forget me? Forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? 2 How long will I store up anxious concerns within me, agony in my mind every day? How long will my enemy dominate me?
3 Consider me and answer, Lord my God. Restore brightness to my eyes; otherwise, I will sleep in death. 4 My enemy will say, “I have triumphed over him,” and my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.
5 But I have trusted in Your faithful love; my heart will rejoice in Your deliverance. 6 I will sing to the Lord because He has treated me generously. Psalm 13:1-6
22 Then He said to His disciples: “Therefore I tell you, don’t worry about your life, what you will eat; or about the body, what you will wear. 23 For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. 24 Consider the ravens: They don’t sow or reap; they don’t have a storeroom or a barn; yet God feeds them. Aren’t you worth much more than the birds? 25 Can any of you add a cubit to his height by worrying? 26 If then you’re not able to do even a little thing, why worry about the rest?
27 “Consider how the wildflowers grow: They don’t labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these!28 If that’s how God clothes the grass, which is in the field today and is thrown into the furnace tomorrow, how much more will He do for you—you of little faith? 29 Don’t keep striving for what you should eat and what you should drink, and don’t be anxious. 30 For the Gentile world eagerly seeks all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Luke 12:22-30
My Words…
I Praise You
Lord, You see my past, present, and future at once, which is both comforting and mind-bending. No one knows me better than You. When You created me, You made me a promise: You will take care of me. You already know what I need. You have given me examples of how You care for the flowers in the field and birds in the air. Flowers don’t work to be more beautiful. Just by being flowers they are splendid. And a bird is content with the nest she builds. She doesn’t kick it out of the tree to build a bigger one. You use simple lessons from creation to teach me how important I am to You. You are the supplier of my needs.
Prayer for Me
When I’m anxious, I come to You with all sorts of questions: Why is this happening to me? Why aren’t You doing something about it? Have You forgotten about me? And obviously, this question pattern has been around since King David’s time. But what David seemed to work through in six verses would take me six days, six months, maybe six years. It’s only when I take my eyes off myself that I see Your answer to my questions: “Take your eyes off yourself.” Each time I see a flower or a bird, bring to my mind Your promise to care for me. Help me recognize and control my tendencies to rely on my own smarts and abilities to fix everything. You’re not going to leave me hanging. You’ll be there to prop me up. I need not worry.
Forgive Me
Paths are wonderful when I am in unfamiliar territory, and I want to find my way through. But when the way is familiar, and I’ve walked through it a thousand times before, I tend to want to make my own path – just to see some different scenery. We both know how dangerous that can be. But lately I need forgiveness for avoiding the path altogether. I saw people on that path who needed me, and I didn’t want to expend the time and energy to help them. I knew if I waited long enough, someone else would come along and take care of it. But I know You meant for me to do something, and I preferred to keep my eyes on me. Straying from the path and focusing on myself – the breeding ground for my anxiety.
A Prayer for Others
C.S. Lewis said anxiety is not a lack of faith. It’s an affliction. If that’s true, then we are an afflicted people. We worry. We worry about worrying. And guess what? There’s a drug for that. All of that anxiety is bred from what we think about – what we consider. David said, “Consider me…” And all these years later, we’re saying the same thing: “Consider us, Lord!” We need this. We need that. But do we really know what we need? You’ve asked us to consider the ravens and wildflowers. It’s a spiritual prescription that doesn’t cost anything except some time to re-focus. We board the “anxiety train” and ride it for a while until the pills and therapy take effect. Help us to open the windows of the train and let in some birds and flowers. Help us surrender our will to Yours so we can get off at the next stop.
Thank You
Thank you for those who have spent years turning to You for wisdom. Their hair has turned white and their bones brittle, but they are the least anxious people on the planet. They’ve lived long enough to know how futile it is to worry. They have figured out what to consider and what to ignore. Bless them in their work to be the balm for an anxious generation.
More Praise
You are a God who listens to Your creation. You hear the first chirp of each baby bird as it breaks through its shell, the crash of each wave as it tumbles to the shore, the prayer of each soul who reaches out to You. You delivered King David from the hand of his foes, and he rejoiced. You have delivered me, not from an enemy with a sword and shield, but from the agony that is a result of an anxious heart. Your path is the way to peace. And like King David – I rejoice.
