Running From Things Not Chasing Us

“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.”  Matthew 6:34

I always enjoyed spending summers with my best friend at his grandmothers home in Middle Georgia.  It was my opportunity to spend a little time away from my normal home activities and enjoy hanging out with my buddy.   It was such a great time in life.  We swam in local swimming pools, played out on the farm, and even spent time fishing.  The local town was extremely small so it was an experience just walking around witnessing a taste of how life used to be back in the “good old days.”

I’ll never forget one of those days we decided to try our hand once again fishing.  We both enjoyed fishing a lot although we never had much success.  Honestly, I think we spent too much time talking and making so much noise that it scared the fish away.  When we finally had enough for the day, with no fish to brag about, we started our walk back to my friend’s grandmothers house.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, we approached a log that had a coiled snake sitting on top.  We both panicked and ran away from the snake, toward the house, as fast as our little legs would take us.

The snake was no danger whatsoever, but we didn’t stop to think otherwise.  We ran and ran and ran until we both were so out of breath we had to stop and rest.  Big mistake.  As we stopped to catch our breath, we both heard some crackling on the forest floor.  Our imaginations went wild and off we ran again.  Surely, there must be more snakes coming after us.  The faster we ran, the more we panicked.  Our journey home was filled with our imaginations gone wild.  Every leaf blowing in the wind and every stray animal noise meant instant death in our minds.  Our minds had convinced us to run from something that was never there to begin with, but you couldn’t have convinced us otherwise at the time.

Each of us goes through trials in our life.  For some of us, it is financial hardship.  For others, there are issues with family and relationships.  Many suffer from unemployment or medical concerns.  Whatever the burden may be in your own life, it is important to keep things in perspective.  The natural tendency is to jump immediately to the worse possible conclusion.  Instead of a cold, you have cancer.  Instead of missing a bill payment, you are in bankruptcy.  Instead of breaking up, you now are single the rest of your life.  I know because I’ve been guilty of doing this myself.

Don’t fall prey to running from things in life that aren’t even there.  Don’t manufacture and embellish facts that have never happened.  Concentrate on God’s plan for your life and let HIM worry about tomorrow.  We all have enough to be concerned about for this day alone.