This is really out of my comfort zone. 

Today, for the first time in two weeks, we filled (gulp) the car with gas.  The cost was equivalent to my first paycheck when I worked for a root beer stand when I was in high school.

Oh... you think I'm kidding.  I'm not.

Of course, when I worked as a car hop I made minimum wage.  Gas was probably somewhere around $.75 a gallon back then. 

Recently I was looking at some old pictures of my grandparents.  They owned a general store in a town of about 50 residents.  The general store also had the post office and a gas station.  Grandpa is standing in front of the gas station, proudly showing off his turf.  The sign says gas is $.15 a gallon.  At that time in history the farmers of the community were probably thinking you had to be pretty high falutin' to afford an extravagant expense like gas. 

I do remember reading somewhere that many people thought the fad of the new-fangled cars would never replace the horse and buggy.

And yet here we are.  Paying close to $75 for a single tank of gas.  I'm not feeling so high falutin' today.   People are wracking up credit card debt at an alarming speed just trying to make ends meet.

When will it all end?

Does it strike you as odd that I tell you it doesn't really matter? 

Phillippians 4:6 tells us Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 

Talk about being out of the comfort zone.  We want to cry, beg, scream, and in general have a melt-down when things get stressful.  We want to complain, whine and moan.  Maybe if we were louder...

But we're supposed to not worry.  Pray.  About everything.  And tell (not cry, beg, etc.) God what you need.  And then... thank Him.

Really?  Thank Him for the fact that my wallet is empty when my gas tank is full?  Or thank Him that my grocery budget is screaming out of sight?  Or thank Him for the (fill in the blank with your own experiences here) _____________.

Yeah.  It doesn't make any sense to me either.  Maybe it's because God's ways are not our ways.  (Isaiah 55:8)  He wants to make sure His ways aren't easy to figure out.  That it's not something we could without Him  We need to have His help daily so we're supposed to remember to thank Him for all the help He gives.

It's really not the logical thing to do, now is it?  It's a little out of the comfort zone... a little out of the norm... to thank God for something as strange as high prices. 

Let's go back to the verse from Phillipians.  Don't worry about anything.  Tell God what you need.  And thank Him. 

He makes everything pretty easy to understand.  It just makes sense to start there...

I know... who would believe that anyone could be busted by something that appeared on a home-making, hobby-building, time-engaging, recipe card-building, kid-craft idea, style-mongering, quotable website.

Me.  I was.

I was creeping on one of my friends Pinterest boards and I ran across a photo of a Bible verse.  Philippians 4:6-7  

 6-7Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.   The Message Bible

Busted.

Why?  Because I was fretting.  Worrying.  So much so that last night it took me almost three hours to fall asleep.   I'm good at worrying when I want to be.    I have years of experience at it.  Now that I'm done worrying, I can rest.

What happened?  I'm not going to bore you with the details.  Let's just say it's a big thing for me personally.  

Here's the gist of where I am right now.  At peace.  At total peace.  

Oh, I wasn't yesterday.  I did have a major attack of the old flesh that almost did me in.  In the past those attacks have lasted days, if not weeks. And they usually brought fighting, arguing, bickering, whatever you want to call it, between Ray and me.    Those attacks that bring worry, stress, nail-biting, and sleeplessness.  As I have matured in the Lord, I have those far less often.  A lot more time between attacks.   

I know I should probably have a stroke or something just to make matters better because worry, stress and strokes always make things better.   (Don't they?)   But I'm not.  

Not this time.

I've been in this place before... this place of having nowhere to look but up.   And it has always been enough before.  It will be enough now.

It will always be enough.

The urge to break down and bawl my eyes out for a few moments is overwhelming me at the moment.

And I don't know why.

Well, actually, I do.  It's because I have become aware over the past few weeks of some very serious needs of people I know.  Names from five different states have been added to my prayer list this week. 

Now I have several hard and fast rules in my life and one of them is that no one cries alone in my presence.   I have stuck like glue to that rule.  It shows.  Little mascara raccoon eyes. 

I have been praying with people.  Talking with people.  Laughing with some and crying with others.  It's all part of the job, I guess.  Ministry gets messy.

As I was tossing and turning last night I was thinking about the people who need to have God show up in their lives in a big way.  And then it hit  me...

I was doing exactly what I tell people to never do... holding on to the problems.  Keeping the needs in my mind and heart.  What I should be doing is handing them over to God.  Giving him the names of my friends and telling Him I fully rely on Him to meet those needs.  I reminded God of His promises.  His safe-keeping.  His faithfulness.   I know He knows all these things already, but I wanted to make sure He knew I remembered them.

So I did.  I gave Him the problems one by one.

I lifted each friend by name.  I gave Him their list of needs and reminded God that His plan for them was for good and not for harm.  (Jeremiah 29:11)   It's a theme I have been trying to live by since some time in the beginning of 2011.  His plan.  Not mine. 

I am working at making myself available to Him for His purposes.  Leaving my to do list with some room in it to allow Him to work through me.   And boy, has He. 

This is how it works in the ministry:  someone comes to me and asks for prayer.  I pray with them.  Then when we are no longer together, I pray for them until I hear it's no longer necessary to do so, for whatever reason.   Sounds easy, huh?

Unless I let their burdens become my burdens.  It happens. 

Then I have to cry to relieve the stress.  Until that still, small voice speaks to my heart and tells me He is pretty amazing.  If I will let Him have the burden, He can and will carry it for me better than I can ever do alone.  (Matthew 11:30 -- my yoke is easy...).  

I just need to make that a priority.  I need to remember ministry isn't about me.  it's about Him.  He can do it better than I ever will.  As long as I remember to let Him.

It's always good for a pastor to remember, God is in charge of the stuff only God can do.  It's not my responsibility.

What I can do is... add waterproof mascara to the shopping list.