Looking in the Mirror

I just got back from a week long trip to the beach...ok, it was supposed to be a week long, but I came back early. Why? A vision problem. My eyesight is fine, or as fine as it usually is anyway, but I wasn't seeing me as I really was and was risking causing vision problems for others.

I know the above is a bit vague, and I don't want to get too deeply into it because it's not the point of this post. Suffice it to say that I was worried about something and not projecting the image I should be projecting.

When you are hired at a company, you no longer represent yourself alone. You represent the company, be that company McDonald's or Apple or a little mom-and-pop shop. Your demeanor while you're at work reflects on the company, whether it's positive or negative. You have to control how you come across because your attitude influences others' opinions of whom you're working for.

Yet with Christianity, we don't seem to consider this. I know I didn't last week. This is not about being real with our struggles with each other. We're humans, so we're going to want to have certain things or do certain things that we shouldn't and becoming a Christian isn't going to magically change that. But what I'm talking about is I didn't consider that when I was so worried about this particular issue and so caught up in it, I was sending a message loud and clear to everyone who saw me that God wasn't good enough. I was announcing that I didn't think God could pull me through this or change my situation or that He didn't care enough about me to help me.

Fortunately, I was on the trip with other Christians. How bad would it have been if I had been with those who didn't know Christ for themselves? What kind of message would I have been sending about God's power and love? "Come to Christ, because He isn't powerful enough to help you and doesn't care enough to help even if He could."

We don't always have to be happy, but we should always have a peace if we trust in God. People want a life without tears and pain, but that's naive and everyone who has any maturity will recognize that. What they really want, then, is to know they'll get through their situation, that it won't overcome them.

Gandhi once said, "There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever." Worry, in other words, is a statement of a lack of faith in God.

What makes you worry? Step back for a second and consider the following two questions: 1. Is God, the Creator of the universe, more powerful than your situation, or not? 2. Do you believe He loves you? If you answer yes to both of those, how can you not have peace?