Saturday 5 May 2018

May 5: Matthew 11:25-30

Key Verse: Matthew 11:28
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Devotion:
We do not have to be rocket scientists in order to understand the bible; Jesus made sure the Holy Spirit could explain things to us at all times! We do have direct access to God through prayer and sometimes that may feel a bit one sided when we don’t hear back from Him within our timespans or our limits; God is going to answer all of our prayers and do so in a manner where we will all understand, but we need to stop and listen.

We also may feel like God is not answering because things are getting on top of us, lack of time, lack of money, lack of various things do heighten our wants or worries. The more we worry about things, the less clearly we think, and the less we are likely to call on God in our times of need. This is why Jesus was saying these words to the people around Him. A very young child will be oblivious to the worries of the world when they can see their parents or carers, but when they lose sight of them they may panic and not think straight while they go around crying over something which is not there!

Our time with Christ is similar because when we lose focus on Him, the worries of the world seem too big to handle and we stop being rational about things. Christ wants us to bring our burdens to Him and leave them with Him. He does not want us to have to worry about the things of this world but to focus on Him as a child looks for a guardian; when we are focused on Him we will not worry unduly about stuff we do not have control over – leave that to the one who can control things and who does want to look after us!

Stop for a short while and look back on how you have handled your worries. Have you given them over to God or have you kept them because you somehow feel the need to take care of them yourself? When we give them to God, He will guide us to the best way of handling things. It may not mean the problem goes away, but it will mean the worry about the problem goes away! Also, when we give things to God we need to allow Him to deal with them, not take them back again so we can have another go! Stop and listen for a response!

Points to Ponder:
Do you take care of your own problems?

Are you allowing God to handle things?