Sunday Worship (Blessings and Futility of Anxiety)

It really was a blessing to be in worship yesterday.  I thank God for my church home and freedom to worship.

During worship, Sara sang "Blessings" by Laura Story.   I might even have written about it before; but, every time I hear it, I am moved by the simplicity of the melody but the power of the beautiful lyrics:


We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love is way too much to give us lesser things

'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home
It's not our home

'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise

And, the song fit well with the message on the futility of anxiety from Matthew 6:25-34, the Sermon on the Mount passage where Jesus asks: "Why are you Anxious?"; reminding us that the Father loves us unconditionally and knows our needs.

Jesus knows what it is like to have the "weight of the world" on His shoulders.   At times like that, we need to remember that God often has something bigger in mind than the immediate circumstance and that we can trust Him to be in control.  When we are weak, He is strong; and "Worry" and "Faith" do not go together.

Verses 33-34 give the strategy against worry:

• Seeking God FIRST and living righteously
• Living one day at a time (worry usually focuses on the past or future, not the now)
• Remembering that God doesn't let us go through more than we can handle (1 Corinth 10:13 says "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.")