His Ways... Day 8... Julie Brooks

Today's devotion... written by Julie Brooks... is from Matthew 6:27:

"Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?"

Julie focuses part of her devotion on a really, really big word (that seems really small): the word 'IF'. God can take care of us if we let him... God can handle our problems if we give them to Him... If is a big word... and a word that many of us don't like. Because it isn't very certain.

Then she said something that caught me off guard a bit. She says, "If Jesus could trust God to take care of Him through his death and resurrection, why shouldn't I trust Him to take care of me?" Wow.

Often I think about the resurrection and Easter in terms of the end of the story. I know that when Jesus goes to the Garden on Thursday night that he is going to end up crucified and nailed to a cross and then on Sunday he is going to raise from the dead. But imagine staring down that notion from the first person side of things. Knowing that I am going to be betrayed, crucified and killed. And that I am going to put my trust in God to take care of me and carrying me through. Why? Because He is the only one who can. Wow! Imagine the faith that Jesus must have had in his Father. Obviously Jesus is God and is confident in the outcome. But he is still man and he still must have been crazy with fear.

One of the scenes that just came to mind... and I will likely watch it over the next couple of days is from the Mel Gibson "Passion" where Jesus is in the Garden at the very opening of the movie. One of the things that the movie did for me was to paint some "fresh" pictures of the crucifixion for me (which I needed). But the scene that popped to mind is where Jesus is wrestling with whether to go through with it and Satan, the tempter, is right there with him, almost whispering in his ear. But yet, Jesus trusted God.

Incredible.

Jim