“Take a moment. Turn to your Father for help.”

A thought by Max Lucado from his book, Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World (Kindle Location 1205). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

Maybe you need to be reminded of this today.

Max says, “In his fine book The Dance of Hope, Bill Frey remembers the day he tried to pull a stump out of the Georgia dirt. He was eleven years old at the time. One of his chores was the gathering of firewood for the small stove and fireplace of the homestead. He would search the woods for stumps of pine trees that had been cut down and chop them into kindling. The best stumps were saturated with resin and therefore would burn more easily.”

Bill said, “One day I found a large stump in an open field near the house and tried to unearth it. I literally pushed and pulled and crowbarred for hours, but the root system was so deep and large I simply couldn’t pull it out of the ground. I was still struggling when my father came home from his office, spotted me working and came over to watch.

“‘I think I see your problem,’ he said. ‘What’s that?’ I asked. ‘You’re not using all your strength,’ he replied. I exploded and told him how hard I had worked and for how long. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you’re not using all your strength.’ When I cooled down I asked him what he meant, and he said, ‘You haven’t asked me to help you yet.’”

Earlier Max said, “This time, instead of starting with what you have, start with Jesus. Start with his wealth, his resources, and his strength. Before you open the ledger, open your heart. Before you count coins or count heads, count the number of times Jesus has helped you face the impossible. Before you lash out in fear, look up in faith. Take a moment. Turn to your Father for help.”

Maybe in our anxiety today we need to be reminded of that fact. 

As Max later days, “This business of anxiety management is like pulling stumps out of the ground. Some of your worries have deep root systems. Extracting them is hard, hard work. In fact, it may be the toughest challenge of all. But you don’t have to do it alone. Present the challenge to your Father and ask for help. Will he solve the issue? Yes, he will. Will he solve it immediately? Maybe. Or maybe part of the test is an advanced course in patience. This much is sure: contagious calm will happen to the degree that we turn to him.”

So, do you need to turn to God today?