Hope

Psalm 37:3

Trust in the Lord and do good;

Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness"

So simple

so difficult

I love the idea of cultivating faithfulness, it must be cultivated because it certainly doesn't happen in one day or over night.  But it is a building of one day, one moment into the next...cultivate.

My Oswald readings lately have been about committing our way unto the Lord and making Him the center. 

I love these reminders of absolute truth...

"If you try to guard it (your life) yourself, you remove yourself from My deliverance.  We do lean to our own understanding, instead of trusting God with all our hearts."

"There are many things that are perfectly legitimate, but if you are going to concentrate on God you cannot do them."

"Fretting springs from a a determination to get our own way."

"It sounds so good easy to talk about 'resting in the Lord' and 'waiting patiently for Him' until the nest is upset-until we live.  Resting in the Lord does not depend on external circumstances at all, but on your relationship to God Himself."

"Fretting springs from a determination to get our own way.  All our fret and worry is caused by calculating without God."

"The one thing that keeps us from the possibility of worrying is bringing God in as the greatest factor in all our calculations."  (Psalm 37:5)

"Jesus said-'Let not your heart be troubles.'  God will not keep your heart from being troubled.  It is a command-'Let not"...Haul yourself up a hundred and one times a day in order to do it, until you get into the habit of putting God first and calculating with Him in view."

It would feel really good to just let go and not go to the automatic responses of worry, of trying to figure it all out, and to try and find that illusive "balance" in life.  That I don't have to worry if I am in His keeping....what a concept. 

To just live with Christ as the center, to commit our ways and to actually trust Him.