Don't Panic

I love my job.  I’m sure I’ve told you that before, but I really do.  I enjoy almost everything about the work I do (conference reports excepted).  There’s nothing I’d rather do than be a pastor.  And there’s nowhere I’d rather do it than here, in the communities of Gettysburg, Onida, and Agar.  I have been extremely lucky, or blessed, or both, to have been allowed to be the pastor here for the last several years, and I hope the luck and/or blessing will continue for several more years.

While I enjoy almost everything about the work I do, however, there are times when there gets to be an awful lot of it.  I’m sure I’ve told you that before, too.  I hope this doesn’t come across as whining, because I don’t mean it to be.  It happens to everyone in every line of work.  For example, I’m sure our local farmers, who are struggling to get their field work done before winter, have more of their work than they’d like right now, too, even if they enjoy it.  Please don’t think I’m looking for sympathy here, because I don’t deserve any.

The point, rather, is that I’ve been working on my reaction to these times, when they occur.  My instinctive reaction is to start to panic.  I think about the things I have to do and the amount of time I have to do them in, and I have no idea how the first is going to fit into the second.  And I start to get kind of frantic, rushing around to try to get things done quickly.

What I’m working on is to not do that.  Instead, I want to relax.  I want to take a deep breath.  And I want to trust in God more.

See, it doesn’t matter how much I think I have to do.  There’s nothing that’s too much for God to handle.  God can handle everything.  I cannot handle everything, but I’m not supposed to handle everything.  Some things are not for me to handle.  All I’m supposed to do is handle the things God has given me to handle.  And if God has given them to me to handle, then God’s going to help me handle them.  All I need to do is keep plugging away, do the best I can, and trust God to do the rest.

So that’s what I’m trying to do.  I don’t always succeed.  I still have times when I start to panic and get frantic.  But those times seem to be coming a little less frequently, and they don’t seem to be lasting as long.  If I trust God, God will help me get everything done.

And God will do the same for you.  All of us have times when the things life throws at us seem like they’re too much for us.  It may be work, but it may be other things, too.  There are all kinds of ways in which life can seem to be overwhelming for us.  And those are also times for each of us when we tend to start to panic and get frantic.  Those are the times when we need to relax, take a deep breath, and trust in God.  If God has given you something to handle, God will help you handle it.  You just need to keep plugging away, do the best you can, and trust God to do the rest.

God is always worthy of our trust.  If we trust God, we’ll spend a lot less time panicking.  And we’ll be a lot happier.