Every time you turn on the TV or radio these days, all we seem to hear about is the credit crunch. House prices are falling, food is getting really expensive; and as for filling up your car with petrol or diesel - well, it's just got totally ridiculous! Whether you heat your home with oil, gas or coal - the cost has rocketed in the last 6 months. And then the other day I heard the 'wonderful news' that electricity bills in Northern Ireland are due to rise by 40% this year.
The result of all this is that most people now (unless you're totally rich) are struggling to make ends meet from month to month.
I am taking my family on holiday to Donegal next week and I haven't even paid the full amount for the rented cottage yet, never mind having any spending money. Am I worried - strangely, the answer to that is an honest "No!"
I have been thinking a lot recently about my lack of finances and how I (as a believer) should react to being skint in a way that gives God glory.
At times I am tempted to worry.
But the Lord Jesus keeps bringing my thoughts back again and again to a certain passage that I have found very helpful when I am tempted to worry about such things as fixing my car or feeding my family or heating my home etc etc.
Perhaps you are worried about your lack of money these days - worried about the future and how you're gonna provide for your family - please just take a few moments to read these words from the mouth of the King of the Universe -
JESUS said ...
Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
"Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
Are you not of more value than they?
"Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
"So why do you worry about clothing?
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; "and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
"Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
"Therefore do not worry, saying, `What shall we eat?' or `What shall we drink?' or `What shall we wear?'
"For after all these things the Gentiles seek.
For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
"But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Matthew 6:25-34
